


No Need for a Thousand Cranes

by shann_13



Category: Voltron Force
Genre: M/M, Non-Explicit, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2018-11-09 20:30:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 46,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11112279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shann_13/pseuds/shann_13
Summary: Set after the end of Voltron Force.  Pidge Stoker, in an impulsive, insecure moment, handed Green Lion over to a cadet.  Now he's struggling with losing a core part of his identity, and Lance McClain - who most certainly was not afraid of the same thing happening to him - takes him on an undercover mission to Dradin to get him back in the game.  It'll be a total breeze and everything will definitely go exactly as planned.





	1. Lately I've been losing sleep

_And even when truth doesn't help with the sting_  
_Out of no numbers, some harsh-looking colors_  
_We pull immaculate change_  
_No need for a thousand cranes_

* * *

He's surrounded by darkness. His footsteps echo as if he's walking through a cave, loud in what's otherwise unnatural silence. There's no sound of water, no rustling insects, not even the movement of air. 

"Guys?" he calls. He has no memory of coming here. Had something happened? Maybe a hit to the head? He's isolated, though; even Green is nowhere to be found. Had there been some sort of a battle? But . . . he feels no pain, and a quick scan shows no injury. Even his uniform is pristine. "Hunk?" 

There's no response, and his voice seems to drop off and fade into the darkness. "Keith? Allura? Lance?" A faint thread of panic is curling up his spine, but he resolutely pushes it down. Wherever he is, he's not alone. The others will be looking for him. 

As he comforts himself with that thought, he sees a gleam of light ahead of him, and perks up. It must be one of the others right now, sweeping through the darkness to find him-- He runs forward, eager to catch up and find out what's happened, but-- 

"A mirror?" he says to himself, approaching. It reflects his own face, puzzled at the sight of a mirror that's just . . . freestanding in darkness. He has a fleeting thought of Haggar's illusions, but-- in everything except location, it seems to be a perfectly ordinary mirror. He raps his knuckles on it, and it makes a small metallic noise as his reflection's hand moves with his own. 

Out of curiosity, he scans it with his Voltcom, but the displays return only a confused muddle. So maybe it _is_ some sort of trick-- but then a flicker of bright color, red-yellow-blue in the distance of his reflection catches his eye, and he breaks into a bright grin. "Guys!" he says, turning around to-- 

\--another mirror, where there definitely hadn't been one a moment ago. 

"What's going on here?" he wonders aloud. Haggar's sinister cackle floats through his mind again, and he closes his eyes tightly, shaking his head. Haggar is . . . is _dead_ , he tells himself firmly, gone forever, and all her ugly tricks are gone with her. 

When he opens his eyes, he's surrounded by his own reflection in pane after pane of glass. 

Confusion and fear unfurl in him and he _runs_ , but somehow the-- was it even a second? when his eyes were closed has surrounded him in a mirrored labyrinth. Every angle, every turn shows him nothing but himself, reflected and reflected and reflected in an empty infinity. 

" _There_ y'are, little buddy," says Hunk's familiar voice, and Pidge stops short, trying to find the source of it. 

"Hunk!" he yells. "Where are you?" 

"I shouldn't be surprised," Allura says, warm and amused, "but still, try not to disappear on us like that." 

"She's right," Keith says, and Pidge looks around in bewilderment, seeing nothing but his own heaving chest and baffled, panicked face. "We're a team. You shouldn't be taking everything on yourself." 

Finally-- _finally_ , he sees a glimpse of red just from the corner of his eye, whisking around a corner. "Lance," he gasps in relief, and runs to catch up. "Where is everyone? Where is this--" 

When he turns the corner, he sees in the mirror ahead of him-- as if through a window-- the hangar in the Castle of Lions. There's Hunk, sitting on one of Green's paws and wiping his hands on a rag; there's Allura, and Keith with his hand gingerly placed on her shoulder, like he's still not used to the idea of it really being all right; there's Lance, slouching against the wall; there's Green, lowering her head and opening her jaws-- 

\-- and there's-- 

\-- there's Vince, stepping out with a sheepish smile. "Sorry, guys," he says. The vivid green of his uniform is smudged with grease. "I guess I got a little caught up and forgot to keep an eye on the time." 

Pidge feels his heart rising into his throat. 

"But listen!" Vince says, looking more animated. "I was checking out the gyroscopic stabilizers, but when I opened the panel to tighten them up, I think I found a new pathway to the Nexus!" He's bright-eyed and excited, and Green rumbles her approval. "If we can access the other Lions' and not just Black's, we might be able to piece together all that fragmented data to . . ." 

His voice is fading and so is the image-- fading away in front of Pidge’s eyes, leaving him to stare at his own stricken face. And he's-- ashamed of himself, for wearing such an expression. After all, isn't-- 

"Isn't this what you wanted?" Vince says from behind him, and he whirls to face another mirror-- but this one shows him Vince, wearing a green-lit Voltcom and regarding him with a calm, curious face. "After all-- this is what's best for the team. You said so yourself." 

Pidge backs away until he feels himself bump into a smooth, cold mirror. 

"He's right, Darrell," says a quiet, slightly reproachful voice, and Pidge stumbles forward, all his trained reflexes failing him. When he turns, he sees Chip staring at him, his eyebrows drawn up in an expression that looks more like puzzlement than anything else. "When better tech comes along, you let the obsolete stuff go. You don’t just hang onto it because you’re attached. You _know_ that." 

"I," Pidge begins, his voice trembling. "I just--" 

"Tech Sergeant," comes a familiar, icy sneer. Wade towers above his reflection, and Pidge stares at himself wearing not familiar green, but the anonymous black and gray of a-- "Or should I say Cadet Stoker? I sincerely hope you have a good reason for wasting everyone's time here." 

"You," Pidge tries to say, but the words-- _you're dead, you were found guilty in front of the whole galaxy, I haven’t been a cadet for twelve years_ \-- won't come out of his mouth. 

"Pidge," says a familiar voice, so familiar he wants to cry, younger and lighter than it should be but-- 

Keith looks at him, regretful. His hair is longer and his face is smoother than it should be, but Pidge wants to _run_ to him-- to this Keith who's younger than Pidge himself is now, but who has always, _always_ been there for him-- 

"Pidge, I'm sorry," Keith says, frowning, "but you made your decision." 

He turns and Pidge can see now, can see everyone, ten years younger than they should be, as if he’s tumbled through time-- Lance with his cynical stare, Hunk looking impatient, Allura glancing to the side as if she's embarrassed, Sven with his arms folded and his quiet, distant gaze-- as Keith goes to join them, they turn their backs on him, walking off into the darkness and the distance. 

"No," he says in a thin, wobbling voice. "No, just-- just wait, I can still--" He rushes forward, bangs his fists on the glass, but the reflection is blurring, fading. " _Please_ \--" 

A shrill cackle swirls in the air around him, and he sinks to his knees, staring wide-eyed into a mirror that reflects nothing at all-- 

* * *

Pidge jerks awake with a start, sweaty and gasping for breath. He sits up and stares for a moment at the view through his window, at the pile of components on his workbench, at the aching familiarity of _everything_ except his charging Voltcom glowing white instead of green, anonymous and blank. 

But it _is_ pinging, he belatedly realizes. With a deep exhale, he slides out of bed to pick it up. The tiny indicator flickers insistently red. 

"What is it, Lance?" he asks, pushing a damp lock of hair off his forehead. The air feels chilly on his skin. 

"Pidgey!" Lance's voice has an all-too-familiar lazy satisfaction to it, like a cat that finally caught the mouse. That usually means trouble for _somebody_ , but Pidge lets it wash over him just the same. "'Bout time. Come down to the control room?" 

"Lance," Pidge begins. "It's two-thirty in the morning. Is there a problem?" 

"If I say yes, will that get you down here?" 

On any other night Pidge might have muted him and gone back to bed, but . . . right now he wouldn't exactly mind having some company for a while. "All right, I'm on my way. Should I raise the others?" 

"No! Nooo no no no no. Just you. Hurry up." 

Pidge blinks. "Oookay then. Quick question, is this related to what you're _supposed_ to be doing? Which, just to remind you, is watching the monitors in case of _attack?_ " 

"One way to find out, Pidge," Lance says, and the link abruptly cuts off. 

Well . . . it won't do any _harm_ to go down there. He'll feel better once he gets distracted, he's pretty sure. Besides, it's probably smart to go find out what Lance is up to. He can always . . . 

A little shiver runs through him, but he resolutely tamps it down. It was just a nightmare, and he can _always_ call for Keith if need be. 

_Definitely_ , he thinks as he goes out into the hallways, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. 

“Definitely,” he says out loud, just to reassure himself, and avoids looking at his reflection in the windows as he passes. 

* * *

Pidge tries, generally, not to fall into the trap of assuming he knows beforehand how things will go, but with fifteen years of data on the habits and idiosyncrasies of his fa-- of his friends, he has certain expectations that are _usually_ fulfilled. So when he walks into the control room he's not remotely surprised to see that Lance has his feet up on the console, or that he's using the temperature pad on the analysis sensor to keep his coffee hot, or-- 

"Ah, Sergeant Pidge," Manset greets him from one of the displays. 

Well, okay, that _is_ surprising. 

"This is why you wanted me to come down here?" he asks, giving Lance a sideways, skeptical look. 

Lance's face is as innocent as it can possibly get, which is to say, not very. "Oh, Pidge, I just thought you'd be really excited to see Our Dear Friend Manset again. Was I mistaken?" The capitals, somehow, clang into place. Manset chuckles. 

"I'd be more interested to know how he's talking to us on a secure channel in our control room," Pidge says, frowning. He looks up at Manset. "Not to mention why." 

"Ah, well, it seems the communication link the good Commander gave to me during our long association overrides many security protocols," Manset says, shrugging, which makes for an expressive gesture with four arms. "And, of course, I am not without resources of my own. Is it such an odd thing for trusted business partners to have, shall we say, a private line?" 

"No, not at all," Pidge says, raising his brows, "but that doesn't explain why _you'd_ have one." He looks over at Lance questioningly. "Or why _you're_ patching him through to discuss anything at this hour." 

Lance smiles. "We're in the same book club." His eyes dare Pidge to respond. 

Fortunately, Manset saves him from having to give Lance the satisfaction. "It pleases the Lieutenant Commander to joke, but I'm afraid this is no laughing matter. You see, I sought him out specifically as we have occasionally . . . dealt privately in the past." Pidge files _that_ away for future reference. "He was kind enough to engineer assistance for my last little problem, which, I am sorry to say, was not solved as permanently as we thought." 

"Your last little problem was that your smuggling got you into trouble with a crime syndicate." Pidge crosses his arms. "And as I recall, the condition for our help was that you stop all illegal operations." 

Manset is the picture of wounded insectoid innocence. "And so I have been! Gradually. But you must understand that it is not so simple as the lovely Princess would like to think. There are operations that must be concluded, shipments that must be handled--" 

"Pidge, what Manset is trying to say is that he accidentally lied, and that means he doesn't have a whole lot of legal options to handle the threats against the pleasuredome." 

"I wish you would stop calling it that," Manset clucks gently. 

"What kind of threats?" Pidge asks suspiciously, and Manset sighs. 

"The remains of the syndicate came together after the departure of the Voltron Force," he says. "There are always remnants of such things, hidden in corners and watching for a chance. The loss of the old bosses made a . . . power vacuum here on Dradin. Where there is so much money being spent, there are always those looking to exploit it--" 

Lance makes an undignified snorting noise into his coffee cup at that, and Manset pauses politely, waiting for him to stop spluttering before he continues. 

"You see, Sergeant Pidge, the breaking of the old syndicate, without removing the structure that permitted them, merely allowed a new one to form. And now the combination of their grudge against me, for bringing the Voltron Force against them, combined with . . . other matters--" This time Pidge snorts. "Well. In short, they are threatening my resort with violence. This no longer concerns just me, but my guests. And so I have come again to ask for help, from the . . . very understanding Lieutenant." 

"Right, I’m sure you’re much more concerned about everyone else than you are about yourself." Pidge looks down at Lance. "If people are in danger, then that's reason enough to get everybody involved." 

“Ah," Lance says. "Manset, a moment?" 

"Of . . . course, Lieutenant." Manset mutes the display. 

Pidge frowns at Lance as soon as it flickers off. "This sounds too serious to take lightly, Lance. I mean, what are we talking here? Cybersecurity on Manset's fake books or bomb threats against tourists? This isn't a game." 

Lance leans forward, suddenly businesslike. "Yeah, well, consider this. Whoever's left on Dradin already has a grudge against the Voltron Force. If the Lions roll up, you think they're going to stick around to get hammered again? They'll disappear, we won't accomplish anything, and after we leave it'll just start up again -- and that's _if_ they don't decide to pull something funny with the Lions instead. We're going to stand a better chance of finding this quickly and quietly if we go in quickly and quietly. If we need backup when we find them, fine, but right now this is counterintelligence, not a show of strength." 

As if he can't stand to be serious for more than two minutes at a time, he suddenly offers Pidge a crooked, half-lidded grin. "Besides, you wouldn't want to snitch on poor old Manset, would you?" 

Pidge regards him for a moment, and finally asks, "So why have me here and not Keith? He's the one who worked with Manset before, and he’s got the experience to take care of this." 

"Well, first and foremost, because Allura's a square and Keith is . . . he tends to go all noble where she’s concerned. If she finds out Manset's still dealing under the table-- and she will-- she'll go in there trident a-blazing, and you won't be able to tell her that getting rid of Manset will just open a spot for somebody a lot worse, never mind that we won't have him around to lean on when we need him. And second--" He hesitates, and there's a flicker in his expression, too brief for Pidge to interpret. 

"Second?" he asks. 

"And second, Keith's not the guy I need. You are." 

"Me?" Pidge looks away, only to realize he's instinctively turned toward the number three bay that leads to Green. Something cold and unhappy curls at the base of his spine, and he hastily turns his attention to the quiet sensors instead. "Come on, Lance." 

"Listen, Pidgey." Lance's voice is low and urgent. "You're a technical genius. You're a saboteur. You're a _ninja_ , for Christ’s sake. You're little and cute and non-threatening and I've _seen_ you snow people, I saw it firsthand for five years at the Garrison when you were innocent little Sergeant Stoker. I need a spy, not a sword-swinging vigilante, but if you turn this down then pretty much my only option is going to be to throw it over to Keith, because I can't do it alone." 

Pidge stares at him, stunned, and Lance abruptly leans back in his chair, lounging somewhat less than convincingly casually. "Oh, and if Keith and I are in close quarters on a sensitive mission for a week, we'll definitely be trying to kill each other by day three. There's that." 

". . . two minutes," Pidge says. 

Lance blinks. "What?" 

Pidge shakes his head. "Lance, this is the most reckless, idiotic thing you've done in a _while_. And I _know_ you're doing it for a comped vacation and the chance to do something stupidly dangerous, so don't pretend you've got some actual reason." 

"I can have real reasons _too_ \--" Lance tries to protest, but Pidge cuts him off. 

"I'm in," he says firmly. 

Lance stares at him for a moment, and then grins. "I knew you wouldn't let me down." 

"If I were half as smart as you seem to think I am, I would have," Pidge says, trying to sound irked, but he can't quite hide a smile. Just before Lance can resume the transmission, Pidge nudges him. ". . . the same book club, huh?" 

"He has _such_ a beautiful soul, really," Lance says, and Pidge gives up and grins back at him as the displays come back up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's the beginning! Thank you for reading.
> 
> This fic is specific to Voltron Force, and won't make a lick of sense applied to any other Voltron continuity; the character names have been lifted from the DDP comic for convenience.  
> NB: VF Pidge is male, a native of the planet Balto, and per the Voltron anniversary book, is 24 years old (to Lance's 28). Consider him anywhere from 24 to 26 in this story, depending on how much calendar time you think VF covers.
> 
> The title and opening lines are from "Rainbows in the Dark" by Tilly and the Wall.


	2. A fondness for things that weren't good enough

Dradin’s an easy flight as they go, even if this adorable little shuttle they’ve swiped handles like a cargo ship compared to Red, a comparison Lance is confident he can make with no bias whatsoever. (Once upon a time he might have been fascinated at Far Universe tech, and at how even the shuttles fly smoothly with never so much as a jolt in the stabilizers, but once upon a time he’d worn flares, too. Things changed.) 

It does give him a pang to leave Red behind, even if the reasoning behind it _was_ real and not just bullshit to make up for Pidge not being able to take Green. They’ve all known for years that there’s something, whatever, _metaphysical_ about the Lions, something that’s just on the flipside of being alive, even if it took the Nexus and the cadets and magical Ariel ghost lions spooky blah blah _blah_ for it to really kick into high gear. 

In his more contemplative moments, he wonders exactly what Red’s heart is made of, sometimes; he wonders if she’s somehow entertaining the same questions about _him_. 

And speaking of things that are small, fast, and occasionally contrary, Pidge is awake. 

“Hey, sleeping beauty,” he says by way of greeting. Hopefully he’s not being _too_ obvious, but he can’t help feeling worried. He’s always had a soft spot for Pidge, always tried to look out for him, even before-- before they’d left the _Explorer_ for Arus. To be honest, Lance would be happier if Pidge had knocked out for the whole flight, and maybe slept off those dark rings under his eyes. 

And then he curls his lip at himself, because _to be honest_ isn’t the most _honest_ phrase to use, is it? 

“Lance?” Pidge says in a groggy little voice. “Are you . . . why are you making faces?” 

“Unfortunate bone structure. Go back to sleep.” 

Pidge makes a fussy noise and closes his eyes, and for just a minute Lance thinks maybe it worked, but then he takes off his glasses and rubs the heel of his palm into one eye. “No,” he says, and yawns, and shakes himself. “I’m okay. I didn’t mean to fall asleep anyway.” He glances over the displays. “About four hours left?” 

Lance turns to look at him. “I don’t even have the route on the screen. Did you sit down and memorize all the star charts or something?” 

“Yes,” Pidge says. When Lance doesn’t respond, his expression goes just a little puzzled. “Hasn’t everyone? I mean, you and Allura sent the cadets to do it as a basic exercise.” 

“Pidge, we did that because they were getting on our nerves. Nobody _really_ does that.” 

“Oh, really?” Pidge looks a little too neutral. “Keith has them memorized.” 

Lance knows when he’s being mocked. “If that’s your best bait, I’m not biting.” 

“Okay.” 

The only sound between them is the hum of the engines and the quiet ticks and beeps of the displays. 

For almost a full minute. “And _bullshit_ he does, Keith can barely find his way out of a _wet paper bag_ without a routing system--” 

Pidge has the graciousness to turn around and muffle himself, although Lance can still see his skinny shoulders shaking. 

“I’m reporting you for harassment,” Lance says, fighting a losing battle to keep from grinning. “I take you into my confidence, into my cherished secrets, _into my book club_ and this is how you repay me.” 

Pidge sits up and adjusts his glasses. “I don’t remember you inviting me into your non-existent book club.” 

“And now I’m not _gonna_.” A screen begins pinging with an incoming transmission, and they both turn to it. 

Pidge furrows his brow. “From the Castle? Lance, you did _tell_ Keith and Allura we were leaving, right?” When a beat goes by with no answer, his eyes narrow. “ _Lance_.” 

“I mean . . . I may have told them by way of a note on the fridge, but technically--” He opens the channel, and groans. 

“Lance!” Daniel yelps, in the process of pushing Vince out of the way as the visual connects. “So you really did go? You’re going on a secret mission, right? With Pidge?” There’s a certain wild-eyed look on his face that, if Lance is any judge, is about to precede an attempt to follow, whether or not he gets permission. Or encouragement of any kind. Or is actively forbidden to do so. 

“Daniel,” he says. 

“You’re gonna need backup, right? We can definitely catch up with you guys if Vince plugs me into Green for a speed boost!” Beside him, Pidge goes still. 

“ _Daniel_ ,” Lance says, as Vince pushes his way back into the transmission with an apologetic smile. His eyes flick toward the copilot’s seat, and his eyebrows draw up and together. Lance follows the line of Vince’s glance and realizes that Pidge has slipped out of the chair and is vanishing out of the cockpit into the guts of the shuttle. A faint-- _something_ seizes the back of his neck, one of those mixed-up feelings he gets that’s not sure yet if it’s going to be anger or anxiety or just general aggravation. 

“I’d actually like to go along,” Vince says, sounding unwarrantedly hopeful. “After all, Pidge is still the absolute expert on Green, so if he’s going to be out in the field anyway I think it’d be really beneficial if--” 

Okay, Daniel he can deal with, but Vince flanking him was unexpected. “Vince. Guys. _Both_ of you,” he says. 

“C’mon, Lance,” Daniel says, “I know I . . . look, I know things got weird in Black, but-- I can make it up to you! To everybody! Just give me a chance!” 

There’s something desperate in his tone, but Lance chalks it up to feeling left out as the only one still at cadet rank. Still, it’s disgusting how quick he feels a pang for the kid. He’s clearly way too attached to the little twerp. “Daniel,” he says for the third time. “Kid.” 

Daniel is practically vibrating. “Yes?” 

“Buddy.” 

Daniel and Vince share an excited look. 

“Absolutely no way in hell.” 

He cuts the connection off in the middle of their protests and twists around in his chair. “Pidge? _Pidge!_ ” he yells through the doorway, but there’s no answering shout. The shuttle isn’t exactly a passenger liner, there’s really no place for Pidge to go where he wouldn’t be able to hear someone calling him from the cockpit. “God _dammit_ ,” he mutters, turning his attention to the console and switching the autopilot on. As he brings up the routing screen to find the coordinates, it occurs to him that maybe he shouldn’t have been so flip about memorizing star charts. (Keith probably _does_ know them all by heart, the creep.) 

Before he can finish setting the course, another transmission begins insistently pinging, and pinging, and _pinging_. A wave of something that’s not yet full-blown anger but that’s showing a _lot_ of promise rolls up in his chest, because _Vince should know better_. If he’s going to take over Green from Pidge, it’s time for him to know what’s okay -- like, to pick a random example, two of their commanding officers doing something because _they’re commanding officers who don’t need to check in with cadets_ \-- and what’s not okay. Like, to pick a random example, being ready to take Green offworld with no idea where he’s going or why, and lightening the team’s firepower by twenty percent, and (“Pidge!”) Pidge still hasn’t answered him and the charts are blurring in front of his eyes and ping ping _ping ping PING PING_ \-- 

“ _What_ ,” he snarls, flicking open the display, “ _is your damage, you little_ \-- princess, what a pleasant surprise.” 

Allura gives him a singularly unimpressed stare. “Oh yes, you look _very_ pleased to see me.” 

“Oh, always. And you look, wow, just-- radiant, Allura, but listen, I’m kind of in the middle of something here--” 

“Get in the middle of an explanation of where you think you’re going and when you were going to tell the rest of us,” she says brusquely. “I wouldn’t be surprised by this behavior from the cadets, Lance, but I expected you to be above joyrides at this point.” 

Lance raises his eyebrows, and Allura sighs. “All right. I expect _Pidge_ to be above joyrides at this point. Is there a reason our second-in-command and the head of the Castle’s defense system have decided to vanish into space?” 

“Absolutely,” Lance says. 

Over the ensuing pause, he notices that Allura has developed an impressive ability to turn perceptibly glacial in under a minute. 

“Do you want to know what it was?” 

“That _would_ be nice.” 

“It’s a secret.” Allura takes a deep breath and he holds his hands up placatingly. “But listen, I was authorized to go, and to take Pidge, so don’t look at me like I’ve done something reckless and incredibly stupid. Without permission.” 

“You were authorized.” 

“By the last Knight of Arus.” 

Allura’s expression has gone totally unreadable. 

“As a military commander of the Galaxy Alliance, I authorized him to authorize me,” Lance adds helpfully. 

She sighs. “You two _live_ to frustrate me, don’t you?” 

Lance relaxes a little. He can recognize the signs that the immediate danger has receded, although it’s never smart to assume Allura’s given up for good. “Keep the cadets off the line, okay? I mean it. No Lions, no kids, no backup unless we call for it. Daniel’s definitely going to try, I’ll tell you that right now. Make sure you keep an eye on them.” 

“Yes, you’re in such a position to act like a responsible authority figure right now. Don’t push your luck, Lance.” He can hear her tapping a finger against the console. “Where are you going?” 

“Classified.” 

Allura frowns. “When exactly did ‘classified’ start excluding me?” 

“Uh, _classified_ , Allura, look it up.” 

Her eyes narrow. “We _will_ discuss this when you get back,” she says, in a tone that seems to be carving the words in stone even as she speaks, “so keep that in mind.” 

“Sit and spin,” he shoots back, and she responds with a gesture that princesses shouldn’t even _know about_ , let alone make with both hands, before closing the transmission. 

He’s just standing up with the display begins pinging again and he’s sorely tempted to put his fist through the screen, except-- just as suddenly, it goes completely dead. 

“I disconnected the channel,” Pidge says from behind him. 

“Pidge!” Lance says, twisting around. “I was getting worried about you--” he begins, and then hesitates, not sure how to proceed. He relies on instinct to guide him, but when it comes to Pidge he starts second-guessing himself. 

(Once, yeah, maybe he would have just . . . scooped Pidge up into a hug. Once he would have been completely sure that it’d be that simple. Things changed.) 

But Pidge looks as chipper as ever, settling back cross-legged onto the copilot’s seat. “I knew you’d never get rid of the cadets, so I went into the communications system and manually disrupted the signal. You know, before you punched through another comm screen.” He tosses something tiny and glittering towards Lance, who reflexively moves to catch it, and finds himself looking down at a bright green chip, carefully contained in a miniature plastube. 

“What’s this?” 

“That,” says Pidge, “is the tracker chip that’s in all the ships at the Castle, including the Lions. With that removed, they won’t actually be able to find us again unless one of us re-opens a link. Which means that even if he tries, Daniel won't be able to follow us.” 

“No shit?” Lance says, and holds the tube up to peer at it. “I didn’t know we had these.” 

“We didn’t, until about two years ago. I installed them.” Pidge adjusts his glasses. “Well, I built them. After the Garrison kept Black under wraps for so long, I wanted to make sure that’d never happen again -- having the Lions stolen from us, I mean -- so it was one of the first changes I started working on as soon as we were all back together. Tracking tech already exists, of course, but I had to remake it from the ground up to be sure that nobody else would recognize it with a standard scan, otherwise anybody could remove it like I just did.” His hands start describing vague motions in the air. “Ordinarily you’d find that in with the regular front-panel circuitry, but obviously the Lions weren’t built up to modern code. They do seem to have a way to zero in on each other, which I _think_ might use Kozlovna lines? But that wasn’t going to help us in another situation where using a second Lion to find the first wasn’t an option, so--” 

And he catches himself mid-sentence, looks up at Lance with a sheepish little smile, and puts his hands in his lap. “Sorry.” 

“Why?” Lance flicks the little chip back to him. “It makes sense. Keep going.” 

Pidge blinks. “Well . . . I didn’t think you’d be very interested, and I know sometimes I start getting too . . . too involved in the details.” 

Lance momentarily relives every “not _now_ , Pidge” that’s ever come out of his mouth, and a few that have come out of other people’s mouths for good measure; and inner vision briefly compares Pidge at this exact second with Pidge animated and talking about something way over Lance’s head, his hands moving and his eyes bright. 

There are not infrequent times, and this is one of them, when he'd like to go back and knock himself into the lake. 

“Yeah, well,” he says, settling back into his seat. “We’ve got four hours to go, that seems like plenty of time to hear all about the details.”


	3. Some nights I'm scared you'll forget me again

Pidge can’t help yawning, and Lance gives him an amused look. “Is this boring you, Pidge? We’re on _Dradin_ , you could look a little enthused.” 

“We’re on Dradin for _work_ ,” Pidge says, “just so you remember.” He leans against the wall of the elevator, watching elegantly dressed people of all types wandering Manset’s resort. Every floor seems to have some different theme, all of them dazzling, but there’s so much of it that it’s all starting to blur together. “And you could have taken the express elevator instead of this one. Actually, I think the stairs would have been faster.” 

“The room’s practically on the top floor, so miss me with your disgusting pro-staircase agenda, all right? Just enjoy looking around like a normal person.” 

Pidge rolls his eyes and looks out at the floors upon floors of people, thinking that they must stick out like a pair of sore thumbs-- but somehow Lance is contriving to look like he belongs here with the ultra-rich, dripping a casual confidence that borders on arrogance, even in his everyday mufti and the flight jacket he wears like a second skin. So maybe it’s just _Pidge_ who doesn’t belong. He catches a glimpse of himself in the glassy elevator wall, and steps back from his pale, tired-eyed reflection, turning his head. 

“Hey.” He feels the touch of a hand on his back, between his shoulders, and looks up at Lance, who has concern sitting uneasily on his sharp features. “Are you sure you’re okay?” 

“I’m fine,” Pidge says, trying not to let it sound irritated, because he really isn’t. To prove it, he leans on Lance instead of the wall, resting his cheek on the soft, ancient leather (and less comfortably, part of a zipper) of his flight jacket. The smell of it catches him off-guard with a rush of nostalgia; it’s been the better part of a decade since the last time he’d fallen asleep on Lance’s shoulder, he hadn’t expected it to still feel so familiar. 

“Jeez,” Lance says, sounding a little exasperated but mostly fond, and rumples Pidge’s hair up. “You look like you’re about to fall over. Give me your bag.” 

“No, I'm fine,” Pidge says, and stands up straight, absently rubbing at the spot on his cheek where the edge of the zipper had poked him. Lance’s hand lingers for just a moment, then lifts away. 

“Well,” he says, offhandedly, “you’ll be able to get some sleep once we get to the room. We’re not meeting up with Manset till tomorrow night.” 

Pidge lets the comment about sleep go. “Why till tomorrow?” 

“Apparently he had some business to take care of,” Lance says. 

“So much for _going legit_ ,” Pidge says, and huffs. 

A soft chime sounds above them as the elevator draws to a stop, so smoothly it’s almost imperceptible. The doors open onto a long hallway with a floor of polished, mottled wood and crystalline lamps studding the walls. Pidge isn’t exactly sure it’d be considered _tasteful_ , but it does look _expensive_. 

“You guys-- listen, none of you actually believed he was gonna do that, right?” Lance says, glancing at the chip in his hand with the room information. “We should be at the end of this hall. I told him we needed a window facing the strip. In case I needed to set up a shot.” 

“Sure. That’s definitely why you insisted on a suite.” 

“You know, would it be so much to ask,” Lance says in an offended tone, pressing the chip into the lock, “for anybody to just give me _five seconds_ of credit, maybe believe in my better nature for once?” It almost sounds like there’s going to be more in this vein, but the door swings open, and Lance seems to catch himself in a full-body pause. 

“I can’t believe in it until I see some _evidence_ of it--” Pidge begins, and then actually takes in the room. There is . . . drapery. There are cut flowers and mirrors and coquettishly low lighting. There’s a fireplace and some sort of pelt rug in front of it. There is one very large bed. 

Lance is staring, slackjawed, and only after a long moment does he gather enough presence of mind to say, “What the hell, I’m going to kill him _myself_.” 

Pidge rubs at his right temple, where there’s already a headache throbbing. “You _ass_ ,” he says, quietly but with great feeling. 

“Shut up.” As comebacks go it’s not one of the better ones he’s ever heard Lance come out with, but at least he can take comfort in the fact that apparently this is Manset’s joke at Lance’s expense, and not one of Lance’s own bizarre impulses. 

Lance makes an irritated noise, seems to shake himself, and steps into the room. He looks thoroughly out of place now, here in the dainty white-and-gold decor and coy lamplight, and when he drops his black military-issue bag it makes a suspiciously metallic _clank_. Pidge follows, and finds the sliders for the lights. 

“If I wasn’t going to be stuck in here with you for the next week,” he says, as the brighter light reveals rows of hearts moulded around the edge of the room, “I’d say you got exactly what you deserved.” 

“Shut up,” Lance growls again, and Pidge feels just a little vindicated. 

* * *

“These terminals are a joke,” Pidge says in exasperation. 

Lance is rummaging in the minibar. “I don’t think they expect this room to see a lot of network activity,” he says, holding up a bottle and squinting at the label. “Well. Not that kind of network activity, anyway.” 

Pidge rolls his eyes and uncoils another cable. “Do they expect a lot of people drinking while emptying out a duffel bag full of firearms?” 

“ _That_ wouldn’t surprise me at all.” Lance picks out another bottle and returns to the array of parts and pieces spread out on the floor. “Sounds a lot like my sister’s wedding, actually. How long till you’ve got your system up and running?” 

“At this rate?” Pidge frowns at his displays. “A few hours, if I can’t find a better connection.” 

Lance looks at him. “Get some sleep, then.” 

Pidge hunches up his shoulders defensively. “Now’s not the time, Lance, I need to get this going.” 

“Now’s the perfect time. It’s not like we can do anything till tomorrow anyway, and you can tell Manset whatever tech gremlin stuff you need. He’ll make it happen for you if he thinks it’s worth his while.” 

Sleep is elusive already, and when it comes it’s only in fitful snatches before the nightmares wake him up; the last thing he needs is for anyone to see that, let alone Lance, of all people. “I’m telling you,” Pidge says, trying to sound patient, “I don’t need to. Why don’t you get some rest? You’re the one who made the flight.” An inspiration strikes him. “You can take the bed.” 

Lance’s eyes narrow, but his voice is light. “Stay there, you’re already set up on that side. I can sleep on the couch for tonight and murder you for the bed tomorrow.” 

Pidge smiles, looks back at his displays (loading maddeningly slowly, still) and wonders when these divisions had grown up between them. Once upon a time they would have thought nothing of sleeping in the same bed -- he’d always been scampering out of his own room and into one of theirs, and his only qualm about sleeping beside Lance would have been the fact that Lance seemed to have 300% the usual amount of elbows and knees. 

But now they’re awkward and hesitant. There’s a restraint that seems to have grown between them -- not just him and Lance, but all of them. Was it the separation that did it, the years of Keith vanishing and Allura being a galaxy away and the Garrison forcing the rest of them to keep each other at arm’s length? Or-- the thought creeps insidiously over him. Was it more recent? Was that closeness something that he’d given up, that he’d handed over along with Green? His throat tightens and he almost, _almost_ turns around and says _you know, we could share the bed again, like we used to_ \-- but Lance brushing him off with a joke is more than he can stand right now. 

“I guess it doesn’t matter,” he says, and spreads the displays around himself in a semi-circle, so that they blur everything around him. 

* * *

Pidge stirs a little and pushes himself up on an elbow, wondering when he’d fallen asleep. Lance is sitting on the floor, peering through a scope, and he feels himself relax. “I guess you were right,” he says, “I needed to--” 

“I’m not so sure I was.” Lance looks at him, still holding up the scope, and even though it’s not attached to anything, the sight of it over his expressionless face is a little unnerving. 

He seems irritated, but maybe he’s tired. “I could help?” Pidge offers, sitting up. 

Lance lowers the scope and slots it into place with a hard metallic noise. “You?” When he looks up again, he looks disdainful, haughty, the face he used to wear when they were at Wade’s Garrison. 

Pidge feels a cold little shiver seize the back of his neck. “Lance?” he says, and his voice sounds timid even to himself. 

“Look at you,” Lance says, flat and hard. “Scared of your own shadows. What did I bring a pathetic rabbit like you with me for? I would have been better off with anyone else, even the cadets.” He smiles, but it’s all knife-edged mockery. “Any one of them would have been better than you. But you already knew that. That’s why you finally handed over Green, right?” 

“You-- Lance, you asked me to come with you,” Pidge says, shakily, feeling like the wind’s been knocked out of him. His breath comes in a short gasp. “You said I was the only one who could do it-- you said you needed me.” 

Lance is still fitting together parts and pieces, and something black and glossy and terrifying is taking shape in his hands. He gives Pidge a contemptuous look. “I don’t need you, and I never will.” The flames roar in the fireplace. “And neither does _anyone else_.” 

The tears begin rolling down Pidge’s face and he knows that he has to-- do something, say something, _react_ in some way before Lance finishes whatever he’s building, ugly and firelit in this surreal room filled with hearts and flowers, but he can’t-- the air catches in his lungs, he can’t _speak_ , can’t _move_ \-- 

“Pidge,” Lance says, his eyes cold. “Pidge.” 

“Pidge!” 

Pidge jerks, breathing heavily. Lance is staring at him, halfway on the bed, the mattress dipping under one of his knees. Pidge recoils at first, looking frantically at Lance’s hands, but they’re empty, spread on the bed to balance him. He looks up, and flinches away from the worry on Lance's face. “I just,” he says, and takes a breath, looking at the rumple of the sheets instead of Lance. “I just had a nightmare, that’s all.” 

There’s a creak as Lance slowly eases to sit on the bed, still watching him intently. It’s a little uncomfortable, and more than a little alarming, because Pidge knows from experience that once Lance has latched onto something, he doesn’t let go. He tries for a smile, hoping he’ll be able to brush it off before Lance sinks his teeth in and says-- 

“You’re shaking like a leaf,” Lance says, sounding wondering and sad. 

Pidge takes a breath. There’s sweat cooling on his forehead and in patches on his shirt. “I’m fine--” he tries to say, but Lance gathers him in and holds him tight, one hand broad and warm against Pidge’s back. 

Pidge is half-twisted around and his back is bent awkwardly and Lance is too hot. “I’m fine,” he says, in weakening protest. His hands betray him, clutching at the front of Lance’s shirt. “Lance, I’m fine, I’m not . . .” 

“I know,” Lance tells him, soothing and apparently meaningless, since he’s not letting go. “I know you are, it’s okay. You’re okay.” 

Pidge draws in a shaky breath and leans his head against Lance’s chest. Lance tries to shift him, rearrange him more comfortably, still murmuring. “Just a dream, Pidgey, just a dream, I promise.” 

“They _are_ just dreams,” Pidge mumbles. “I should have figured out what to do about them by now.” His eyes prickle, and he closes them tight, pushing his face into the juncture of Lance’s neck to try and stop himself from sniffling, or at least to hide it. Kindness from _anybody_ right now would leave him vulnerable, but Lance-- spiky, sarcastic Lance being clumsy and gentle and soft is almost too much, after the sharp, sinister thing in his dream. 

“What kind of dreams?” Lance asks him. 

“They’re . . .” Pidge hesitates, bites his lip. “They’re stupid. They’re just nightmares. They don’t matter.” 

“Come on, bird, don’t hand me that.” 

Pidge finds he can’t say it-- can’t tell this Lance, warm and real, what the icy phantom said in his dream, can’t admit he’d ever believed those words would come out of Lance’s mouth. “I had one,” he begins again. “I was in this-- maze, made of mirrors. And I could see all of you-- but none of you saw me.” His eyes well up and he releases Lance’s shirt with one hand, scrubbing angrily at them. “You were all talking to-- talking to Vince, and everyone kept telling me I should be happy, that I wanted this-- but then you all disappeared--” 

“Oh,” Lance says, sounding stricken. “Oh, Pidge.” 

“It’s _stupid_ ,” Pidge says, and sniffles, and hates that he’s sniffling. “I should be able to deal with this--” 

But Lance holds him tight. “I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know it was this bad,” he says. “I should’ve figured it out a month ago.” 

“You shouldn’t have _had_ to. There’s no reason for me to be--” Pidge shuts his eyes tight. “For me to be doing this to myself. A dream about mirrors, give me a _break_.” Saying it out loud in the waking world makes it sound ridiculous, makes him sound like a child afraid of shadows. 

When Lance speaks, it’s slow, as if he’s having a hard time finding the right words. “Pidge,” he finally says, “you’re-- you’re so much more than you think you are. We’re not going to disappear. _You’re_ not going to disappear. Oh, oh Jesus-- Pidgey, don’t--” 

The tears keep coming even though Pidge has shut his eyes, so he pushes his face against Lance’s chest, holding on tight. 

“I’m sorry,” he tries to say, thinking of Lance’s interrupted sleep and wet shirt and how’s he had to listen to all this, how it’s weak and silly and childish, and he realizes that Lance is saying the same thing for some reason. He wants to ask why, why is Lance sorry, why does he sound so upset, but he doesn’t trust his voice when it’s already making such pitiful, gasping noises. 

So instead he gives in and lets himself be held, here in this silly tacky room where they’re supposed to be making plans to bring down a crime syndicate, because everything’s already so absurd and unexpected that it almost feels like it might be all right to let go, just for a few minutes -- like it’s all an epilogue to the dream, something else he’ll find himself waking up from. 

* * *

When Pidge finally sits up, his face feels sticky and his nose feels stuffy and his entire psyche has apparently shot past the embarrassment singularity into a whole new universe. He tries for a wobbly smile up at Lance. “This,” he starts, and gulps, and rubs his nose. “This’d be a really b-bad time for the cleaning staff to walk in.” 

Lance smooths his hair back off his damp forehead. “It’s probably not the worst first night they’d have seen in this room. Come on, you don’t want to sleep in that. Clean shirt.” He gets up and rummages in his bag. 

Tired and worn out as he is, Pidge can’t help a rush of fondness. “You act tough, but you’re really kind of a mother duck, aren’t you?” 

Lance rolls his eyes and tosses the fresh shirt against Pidge’s face. “I don’t have to take that kind of slander from you. And it’s mother _hen_ , by the way.” 

He settles back on the bed as Pidge squirms out of his sweaty shirt and into the clean one that Lance has given him. It’s gray and threadbare and huge on him. “I don’t know your farm animal idioms,” he says, and then hesitates, trying to find a way of saying _please stay_ that might still have a chance of sounding neutral and leaving him a graceful exit. 

But Lance doesn’t bother waiting for an invitation, just stretches out and does that weird wriggling thing that he does, like he’s trying to burrow into the mattress. “That couch is _not_ comfortable, by the way, so I’m going to crash over here instead and you can deal.” 

Pidge knows Lance won’t let this go-- that he’ll pursue it with the same stubborn, one-track mind he does with anything he gets his teeth into. But the relief washes over him like a warm wave, just the same. “Well,” he says, “I _guess_ I can let you share.” 

* * *

He wakes up when one of the displays he’s connected to the room terminals finally gets disconnected too many times and gives up with a brief error alert. The room is dark except for the green glow of the panels on one side and the red flicker of the synthetic fireplace on the other. Lance’s breathing is slow and steady and his arm, haphazardly thrown over Pidge’s side, is heavy and warm.

If he’s been dreaming, he can’t remember it, and he dips back into sleep with barely a ripple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a marvelous [illustration](http://edorazzi.tumblr.com/post/152753220900/he-wakes-up-when-one-of-the-displays-hes) for this chapter by the extremely wonderful [edorazzi](http://edorazzi.tumblr.com), and you should look at it:
> 
>  


	4. Hope is a four-letter word

Lance jolts awake when something jabs him in the ribs. He sits up and jerks Pidge close against him despite the whine of protest, spending a wild few seconds looking around before his brain catches up with his body. He sags, and looks down. Pidge is as limp as a rag doll, despite being manhandled. Come to think of it, it was probably one of his bony little elbows that woke Lance up in the first place. 

He lowers Pidge back down as carefully as he can, although Pidge is _deep_ in that Balton sleep cycle, by the looks of it. Lance tries to remember-- is it thirty-six hours awake to twelve asleep, is that it? Fourteen, maybe? Something like that. Maybe if he hasn’t slept right in a while, it’ll be longer. “We’ve scrambled you up pretty good, haven’t we, bird,” he says softly, and touches the back of a finger to Pidge’s temple. “I should’ve known.” 

Pidge scrunches up his face in his sleep and Lance guiltily snatches his hand away, but Pidge only rolls over and up against him, nestling. His brow relaxes and his breathing evens out, back into the tiny whuffling noise he makes that’s the barest intimation of a snore. Lance can see the collar of his shirt looping too big around the back of Pidge’s neck, can feel the steady rise and fall of Pidge’s narrow chest against his own. 

_He must get lonely_ , Lance thinks-- and then makes a conscious effort not to try inserting himself into _that_ equation. Putting one arm over his eyes and wrapping the other one around Pidge’s shoulders, he lets out a deep sigh of solidarity with all the other also-rans of the universe. 

All right. If he’s going to be awake, there’s better things he can be doing than feeling sorry for himself. Lance frowns absently up at the ceiling, trying to fit the pieces together into a Pidge-shaped puzzle. He knows a big part of the problem is the handover of Green Lion, which-- okay. That’s not going to be fun but that makes sense, he can work that one out. But if Pidge is _this_ bent, then Green can’t be the _only_ thing gnawing at him. 

He tries to assemble everything he knows about Pidge. Not the normal things he _knows_ ( _talks to mice; puts nine sugars in one cup of coffee; perches in convoluted little knots on chairs instead of sitting like a normal person; hoards candy instead of eating it; considers fishing some kind of rude personal challenge from nature_ ) but the framework surrounding it all that he never really thinks about. 

Balton. Twin brother. War orphan. Child prodigy, fast-tracked through the Academy. Trained as a military saboteur. Trained in whatever Balto’s techno-murder style is. Trained to be a combat pilot. Engineer. Hacker. Arus mission. Green Lion. All of it starts tangling together. Lance takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. He can _feel_ the edges of whatever this is, he knows he has it right in front of him, if he can just work out the shape of it . . . 

* * *

Lance wakes up again, bleary and confused from a foggy dream of trying all the doors in a long corridor in the Castle of Lions, while Allura patiently tells him that they won’t open unless and until they’re destined to. He can’t remember exactly what he’d said to her in the dream, or if he’d said anything at all, but he looks down at Pidge and finds himself hoping he told her just where she could shove destiny. 

Lance tries to roll out of bed and Pidge whines in protest, latching onto him. “Pidgey,” he says, gently detaching one of Pidge’s arms from around his neck. “Hey. Hey. Listen, nerd bird.” No sooner does he move to uncoil Pidge’s other arm than the first one is back where it was. “Pidge, if I don’t get into the head in the next two minutes I may literally die.” He pushes a pillow under Pidge’s arm the next time he manages to work it loose, and thankfully Pidge diverts his clinging to that. Lance does what he almost never does, and makes a hasty exit out of bed while he still can. 

The bathroom is actually nicer than the one he has in the Castle, and he’s borderline tempted to harass Allura with that fact, except she’ll probably start changing the subject with questions like _how much space do you actually need_ and _what were you doing on Dradin_ and _wasn’t Manset supposed to completely give up smuggling_ and _is this really an appropriate use of Pidge’s time_. And while riling up Allura ranks solidly in Lance’s top five favorite pastimes, she’s also exactly the sort of person who will ignore the _important_ questions he brings up in favor of focusing on insignificant shit, like asking why he’s in a honeymoon suite with Pidge preparing to fight an organized crime ring instead of asking him how he’d like his quarters expanded and remodeled. 

Lance splashes his face, glances at himself in the mirror -- still there, for whatever _that’s_ worth. 

He mulls things over as he goes through the morning routine of _brush teeth, shave, order the entire left side of the breakfast menu from room service, shower_. Pidge having nightmares about disappearing nudges itself to the front of his thoughts, and he tips his head back under the scalding water, trying to let it fit itself into the puzzle. _Keys_ , his brain helpfully supplies him at that point, and he thinks of long corridors of locked doors - dreams - the Castle - Lion keys. Lions on the standards they’d hung up for Allura, and Pidge standing under them to hand Green over to Vince, pretending that was the purpose all along. Keys. Keys, jangling in his head. He has the keys, all he has to find is the _lock_ \-- 

He finds that he can’t stop worrying at it, even when he tries. It doesn’t help that he feels a little housebound, because he doesn’t want Pidge to wake up alone ( _what if he has another nightmare?_ his conscience reproaches him, and that starts him wondering how many nightmares Pidge has already had and sweated through without anybody there, and that just makes it worse). So Lance finds himself pacing the room, restless and bored and worried all at the same time. He tries to amuse himself for a while flicking through the programmed vistas that project onto the windows -- sunsets appear to be popular, wow, groundbreaking stuff there -- and pokes hopefully at Pidge’s blinking displays for a few minutes until one of them lets out a noisy _error!_ beep. He backs away hurriedly just as the knock comes on the door. Okay, the room service order was funnier before he knew how much food it was actually going to _be_. The kid unloading the cart has a certain dead-eyed _same shit as always_ expression, as far as Lance can tell the difference, and he tries to comfort himself with that fact. It occurs to him, belatedly and only when the waiter glances over at Pidge (still unconscious and wrapped around a heart-shaped pillow and looking offensively small in Lance’s shirt), that there are probably all _kinds_ of wrong ideas to be had here. 

“Is there anything else I can help you with, sir?” the kid asks him, his eyes sliding back to Pidge and then quickly to Lance again. 

Fortunately, Lance thinks, digging in his pocket for cash, even if money can’t buy happiness it can buy tact, or at least quick and relatively graceful exits. 

He snags the first thing he sees that looks like bread, chewing it absently as he pours a cup of coffee. Resolutely, he tries to push Pidge out of his mind for a while -- at least until Pidge wakes up to be an active other half of the conversation -- and focus on his other set of problems. Because he’s not happy with how Manset is handling this so far. The tab is holding out, they’ve gotten their room no problem, they have a scheduled meeting-- everything seems to be going fine, and yet Lance’s instincts are clanging at him. He hopes, uneasily, that he hasn’t walked right into a double-cross with Pidge gift-wrapped as a bonus. 

Okay. So there’s nothing he can do about Manset’s situation until they meet up with him later, and there’s nothing he can do about Pidge until Pidge wakes up. This is the worst kind of limbo, as far as Lance is concerned. But that’s . . . probably what’s making him so feel so hinky about all this, to be honest. He always gets jittery when he has to sit around and wait, he doesn’t have Keith’s patience. 

At least . . . at least as soon as Pidge wakes up, he’ll have someone else around and he’ll feel better. 

With a sigh, Lance digs around for a book, and eventually finds it in the nightstands, along with some-- other complimentary items ( _really, Manset?_ ). He settles back on the bed, sitting up against the headboard. The hotel library it’s networked into is-- well, not very extensive, and not very good, but there has to be _something_ he can read for an hour or two, at least until Pidge wakes up and takes him out of his own head. 

Pidge rolls over, and Lance reaches out to ruffle his hair a bit. “Wake up soon, okay?” 

* * *

Pidge’s eyes flutter, and he sits up, blinking in sleepy confusion. “Lance?” 

“Hi, bird,” Lance says, putting his book aside in the middle of Lady A’lia’s tryst with the chief of the star pirates. “Feeling any better?” 

Recognition filters into Pidge’s eyes. “Oh . . . well, better than I was last night.” He fidgets a little with the blanket. “I’m, um. I’m sorry about all that.” 

“Don’t be sorry,” Lance says, and scoops him into a hug. Pidge freezes, and for a moment Lance is afraid he’s done something wrong, crossed some line that shouldn’t be crossed in sensible waking daylight, but then Pidge snuggles into him with a little sigh. 

“How long was I asleep?” he asks Lance’s collarbone. 

Lance gently scritches up his tousled hair. “I’m not _exactly_ sure, but if we’re going by Castle time I woke you up around two last night, and it’d be about three in the afternoon now.” 

Pidge lets out a _squawk_ and pushes himself off Lance’s chest so hard he almost bowls over backwards. “What? I thought you were going to say it was _nine in the morning_ or something!” 

“Well, it might be on Dradin, I haven’t reset my chrono yet.” 

“Don’t be an ass! Why did you let me sleep for _thirteen hours?_ ” Pidge demands, and if it weren’t for the bedhead and the squinting and the pillow imprint still on one cheek, Lance possibly could have even taken him seriously. 

Apparently at this range Pidge doesn’t need his glasses to throw a fluffy pink pillow at Lance’s head with deadly accuracy. “Don’t just sit there laughing! I should have been working! Where are my glasses, I need to--” His stomach chooses that moment to growl audibly, and the tirade stops midstream as Pidge flushes bright red. 

“You need to _eat_ ,” Lance informs him, “and you’re welcome for my foresight and preparation on that front, by the way.” 

Pidge makes a face that’s probably supposed to be a scowl, but it comes off as a pout. “Don’t be _smug_.” He glances over at the displays, and his brow creases. “Wait, why are these giving off error messages? Even if they disconnected, they should just--” 

“Eat,” Lance says hastily, steering him toward the table. 

If Pidge wants to argue, he gives it up in favor of plopping down at the table and eating ravenously. He’s halfway through his second plate before he slows down enough to look up at Lance. “Aren’t you going to eat anything?” 

“I did,” Lance says, and then more defensively when Pidge just stares at him, “I _did!_ ” After another moment of disapproving gaze, he lets out a huff and sits at the table, sliding the first dish he can put his hand on in front of himself. “Okay?” 

He picks at it indifferently while Pidge empties another plate. Lance has never really been interested in food for its own sake. The social currency of being seen in the right places, sure. Familiar flavors, okay, if they're convenient and he doesn't have to go out of his way for them. Beyond that, what’s the _point?_

A bright little jingle sounds from over by the bed, and Pidge perks up, scrambling back over to his bag. Lance cranes to look. “What’s that?” 

Pidge is fishing his Voltcom out of his bag. He’s taken to leaving it collapsed and carrying it in a pocket, only taking it out when he needs it for something, which-- Lance isn’t sure how he feels about that. The tanlines on Pidge’s arm are a constant reminder that something’s missing. 

“It’s a transmission from Hunk,” Pidge says, sounding more cheerful than he has at any point in the last forty-eight hours, and something besides his abandoned breakfast abruptly goes cold and drops out of Lance’s morning. “He’s come up with… it looks like it’s some kind of condensed control panel that can be hooked up to the main Castle defense system for mobile and remote use--” 

Lance makes a noise that he hopes is appropriately impressed through his coffee. He wants to laugh at himself, really, because-- it’s not like he didn’t _know_. It was just so easy to _forget_. 

_Serves you right_ , he tells himself. This wasn’t ever supposed to be about Pidge _and him_. 

It’s not like even _he_ needs the resident whiz kid to tell him that five divided by two is always going to end up with one left over. 

“So that’ll come in handy,” he says, looking back at Pidge. 

“I’m not sure how _necessary_ it’ll be exactly,” Pidge says, “but it’s nice to know I won’t be tied to the control room all the time. I could bring it into the hangar, except--” 

“Except what?” 

Pidge smiles again, but it looks a little lopsided. “Well, is it really my place to be working on the Lions anymore? No, don’t look like that, I mean it. Vince has the technical know-how and he seems to be able to-- connect with them. Literally, when need be.” He fidgets a little with the Voltcom in his hands. “Besides, it’s better if somebody who’s flying them works on them. He’ll know what you need.” 

“Catch me letting Vince root around in Red’s guts,” Lance says irritably. “You and Hunk know more about the Lions between you than he ever will.” 

“Well-- thank you for thinking so. But we don’t know as much as you think. I mean, there’s the self-renewing perpetual fuel cells, we have no idea how those work. Our best guess for how they repair themselves is nanotechnology, but we don’t really _know_. And finding the Nexus really threw us for a loop.” In spite of himself, Pidge seems to be getting animated again. Lance relaxes in his chair. “I mean-- Lance, it’s like they’re _alive_. They’ve moved and flown on their own, plotted routes to go to Ariel without us, they’ve made decisions-- Here, look at this.” He wakes up one of his blinking displays, swipes aside whatever he had going, and starts opening panels. 

Lance obligingly goes over to look, although Pidge’s diagrams and notes are so far over his head that he could have stayed in his seat without losing anything by way of comprehension. “What am I looking at?” he asks, flattening Pidge’s hair to try and see better over it. 

“This is the Nexus code from Black. And _this_ \--” Pidge rolls open something that looks like so many squiggles and blotches to Lance, “--is a map of the electrical impulses during a typical short flight.” 

Lance is trying, he really is, but it just looks like so many sloppy, blotchy lines to him. “Explain this to me like I’m five years old.” 

“Well-- first you have to understand that it’s just a theory, and I haven’t really told anybody about it because it’s so contradictory to everything we know about them, but-- all of this activity, it’s a dead ringer for _brainwaves_ , Lance.” 

“Okay,” Lance says, and waits. Then he peers more closely at the blinking, blotchy image on the display. “Wait, so you’re saying the Nexus is a brain? Like they're intelligent?” 

Pidge pushes his glasses up his nose. “I think it's _possible_. I don’t have anything other than just . . . this, though. Circumstantial evidence. I can’t _prove_ anything.” 

“Not yet,” Lance says. 

Pidge looks taken aback. “Wait, you believe me? Just like that? Lance, do you appreciate how wild this is? It’s absolutely unheard of to have totally independent AI on this scale, especially in a ship.” 

Lance shrugs. “Look, I can’t do what you do and explain how it works, but they’ve _always_ had personalities. Even before Black got his chest cracked open. I’ve flown all of ‘em and they were all different, even then.” He considers. “That’d explain them all walking around on their own better than some pre-programmed malfunction, too.” That had been the best explanation they’d had on the table for Black leading the other Lions off after ejecting the pilots -- some sort of training program that had been triggered by fooling around in the Lions’ programming, but Pidge’s thing makes more sense. 

“Personalities?” Pidge says, curiously. 

“Lionalities, then.” 

“No, just-- what do you mean?” 

Lance snorts. “You’ve flown them, Pidgey. You know it’s true. Tell me Black and Red are nice and cooperative like Blue and Yellow, go ahead.” 

“Oh, well, I always thought maybe you and Keith were just a bad influence,” Pidge says, trying and failing to keep a straight face, laughing outright when Lance shoves him over onto the pillows. He lies there, spread-eagled, still grinning and bright-eyed. Lance wonders if this is how he talks to Hunk-- all wild, excited ideas spilling out, bouncing them around to see what sticks. “But Lance, I mean-- if the Lions do have some kind of locked AI, that means ten thousand-year-old programming that’s at _least_ as advanced as what gets produced on Balto _now_. Why would that be sealed away?” 

Lance shrugs. “Last thing anybody needs is their ship arguing with them because it’s tired of being shot at. That’s why they don’t have sentient AI on ships, isn’t it?” 

“But then why build it into the Lions in the first place, and then just . . . turn it off?” Pidge is quiet for a moment, and then says, “I have another theory, but this one’s really kind of out there.” 

“Hit me.” 

“Well, it’s . . .” Pidge hesitates. “I mean . . .” 

“Let’s cut this short-- I’ll pour half a cup of coffee right on your face if you don’t spit it out. And it’s really good coffee, so I’d hate to do it.” 

“I think the Lions and their pilots are supposed to link. Brain to Nexus.” Pidge looks up at him. “I think they’re supposed to fly as a single unit. You remember the story about the Beast King, right? What if that’s-- some kind of folk memory of a real thing? Flying the Lions or even _Voltron_ like it’s an extension of ourselves?” In his excitement, he doesn’t notice his slip, and Lance is hardly about to point it out. 

He tips his head back, thinking about it. It does make sense-- and at the same time, it sets off warning bells. For no reason he can exactly describe, every instinct he has is shouting _no, no, no!_ at him. The story of the Beast King’s arrogance, what had happened with Daniel when he’d had his consciousness transferred into Voltron-- 

“I know it sounds like sci-fi,” Pidge says, sounding apologetic. 

“It’s not that,” Lance says slowly, turning his cup around in his hands. “But I think-- if that’s true-- there was a reason for them to lock it down.” Something that can think, sealed away for ten thousand years, and alien on a scale that reduces differences like ‘human or Drule’ to nothing-- 

“Lance?” Pidge says, and he snaps back to reality. 

“What?” He huffs. “I can’t believe you come out with all this stuff about the Nexus being, whatever, _synapses_ and you still think you have no business working on the Lions. Go take a bath, nerd bird, your hair's all stupid.” 

Much to his surprise, Pidge docilely rolls off the bed, but then he hesitates. “Um,” he says, looking a little shy. “Thanks.” 

“For what?” 

“Well, just for-- listening.” Pidge is more diffident than Lance has ever seen him. “And actually thinking about it. I mean, I know it’s not really your thing, but you still let me throw all of that stuff at you, even if it sounded crazy. So-- thank you.” 

Lance once again wishes he could go back in time and personally punch all of them, including himself, right in the mouth every time they’re about to brush Pidge off. “You don’t have to thank me,” he says with an effort, “just-- just get going, already, we’ve got places to be later.” 

Pidge darts into the bathroom, the tips of his ears pink. A moment later, he yells out, “Lance, did you see the bath? It’s huge!” A beat. “And it has six different bubble taps! And this soap smells like candy!” 

“Honeymoon suite!” Lance calls back, grinning. “That’s not soap!” 

Pidge lets out an abrupt, scandalized little squeak, just as a single bubble floats gracefully out of the bathroom door with perfect comedic timing, and Lance splutters coffee up his nose laughing at the absurdity of it all. 

He doesn’t disturb the shadowy thoughts of what might be locked away in the Lions again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's probably nothing, Lance.
> 
> 'The Beast King' is a reference to one of the VF comics, where the legendary (and violently amoral) spirit that used to animate the five Lions is unsealed. In itself it's a nod to Golion's origin story in Beast King Golion. It also happens to completely contradict VF's in-series origin story for Voltron, so it remains a legend in this story rather than a being they've actually faced in battle.  
> I'm pretty sure if any two Voltron continuities ever agree on the origin of the Lions, the entire franchise will implode.


	5. Twin high-maintenance machines

“You can’t wear that,” Lance says, looking Pidge’s slim-fitting green coat up and down with a critical eye. 

“Excuse me? What’s wrong with it?” Pidge has gotten good at glancing past mirrors, just in case, but he takes a look in one now. He looks . . . fine? The shirt looks a little rumpled from being packed away, is that what Lance means? He leans closer, smoothing it down, and focusing on the fabric rather than the reflection of his face. 

“You’re going to stick out like a sore Arusian thumb. We’re supposed to be _undercover_ , Pidge. Did Allura dig that out of a closet somewhere for you?” 

“Not that it’s any of your business, but yes, she did. I had to wear something,” Pidge says testily. “What do you want me to do, wear my work clothes?” 

“I want you to wear something between ‘Arusian nobleman’ and ‘hangar hobo’, we’re trying to keep a low profile here.” 

“Well, it’s this or nothing,” Pidge snaps, irritated and a little embarrassed. 

Lance -- who’s no fashion plate himself, Pidge thinks resentfully -- just stares at him. “You’re shitting me. That’s really all you have?” Pidge starts sputtering an angry response, but Lance just huffs. “God. Okay, whatever. Sit tight, I’ll be _back_.” 

“Don’t you leave!” Pidge snaps. “Whatever you’re planning to go do, we’re supposed to be--” 

“Can’t hear you, leaving!” Lance calls back, and then the door shuts behind him and he’s gone. 

Pidge can feel himself puffing up with indignation, because that’s easier than confronting the sick little feeling welling up in him that’s saying _he must not need you that much if he’s already finding reasons to ditch you here_. Is that what’s going to happen? Is Lance just going to leave him behind too? Over _clothes?_

Is that . . . is that really all it took for Lance to forget about needing Pidge? 

Pidge wants, badly, to grab his Voltcom and send a transmission to Hunk-- not about this, not revealing this side of himself to the last person who still treats him like nothing has changed-- but just to talk about the lousy ports, about Lance ordering way too much food like an idiot, about what Hunk is working on in the Lions, about-- 

\-- maybe not. Maybe he’ll just-- work on coaxing some information out of the resort systems. 

He sits cross-legged on the floor, spreading out his displays again. He’s feeling a little queasy-- maybe he ate too much, or maybe he’s allergic to one of the scents from the bath taps, or maybe he’s still falling too fast. 

Pidge shakes his head to clear it and focuses determinedly on his screens. He’ll prove Lance needs him. He _will_. Because the alternative would mean-- 

That'd mean he really is-- 

It doesn’t _matter_ what the alternative would mean, he’ll _prove_ it. 

* * *

When the lockpad beeps and the door opens, Pidge bounces an inch or two off the floor to get up before squelching down that instinct. Instead he stays where he is, keeping his eyes fixed on the screen in front of him, even though his ears are tuned directly into the approaching footsteps. 

There’s a creak on the bed, a rustling noise, a shadow, and then a bulging gloss-paper bag drops into his lap. Pidge jolts in surprise, and looks up. 

“I had to guess on the sizes,” Lance says, sitting back on the bed, “but that should keep you for the week, anyway. Or at least long enough for you to go pick out your own clothes.” He puts his arms behind his head. “Turns out there’s like . . . a whole mall on the ninth floor.” 

“You-- you bought me clothes?” Pidge asks, confused. He looks into the bag and sees bundles of fabric. “That’s where you went?” 

Now Lance looks slightly confused. “Where’d you think I was going? What were we talking about right before I left? I need you with me, Pidgey, I can’t have you walking around looking like Allura’s Nanny dressed you. God, remember how she used to-- Pidge? What’s funny?” 

Pidge’s shoulders shake with laughter he can’t quite suppress, and the bag crinkles and crunches against his chest. “I am,” he says, through noises that _aren’t giggles, he doesn’t giggle_ , and looks up. “I’m an idiot.” 

Lance chucks a pillow at him. “Nobody gets to talk that way about our bird!” 

Pidge scrambles up onto the bed, smacking Lance with the pillow for good measure before he dumps the bag’s contents out onto the blanket. The clothes that tumble out are plain and unremarkable, but he feels a rush of gratitude just the same. He can’t remember the last time he had new clothes. “Thank you, Lance, this is so--” A single flash of gaudy color among the gray and black and green catches his eye, and he picks up one of the shirts, shaking it open. 

He lifts an eyebrow. “This is so . . .” Blazoned across the front of the bright red shirt are five crude, blocky approximations of the Lions in mismatched colors, set against stock art stars with the legend GLADIATOR BEAST FORCE. Pidge searches for words, and ends up with, “So _you_ , Lance.” 

“They didn’t have it in adult sizes.” Lance looks like he’s trying desperately to keep a straight face, and rapidly losing the battle. 

“How disappointing for you.” It probably _was_ , Pidge reflects. Lance has a bizarre fascination with bootleg Voltron merch. He has a whole shelf of it. 

“You _have_ to wear it.” 

"Not a chance." Pidge balls it up and throws it at him. “Maybe we can have it framed for you before we leave.” He picks out a shirt and a pair of black pants, sliding off the bed and going to the bathroom to change. 

“Oh _yes_ , go slip into something more comfortable,” Lance calls after him. “I’ll just be here _waiting_.” 

“Allura says you and Keith dress like slobs!” Pidge yells back, shucking off the embroidered Arusian jacket. 

“Oh really? Well, tell Allura she dresses like a seven-year-old girl!” He sounds genuinely peeved, and Pidge can’t help another entirely non-giggly burst of laughter. When he looks up at the mirror, his reflection is smiling. 

* * *

The clothes are actually not a bad fit at all. The shirt’s a little bit baggy around the chest and he’d had to roll up the cuffs on the pants, but Pidge keeps plucking happily at them, just the same. He can’t remember the last time he got _new_ clothes, instead of wearing a flight suit or a Garrison uniform or somebody’s hand-me-downs for work clothes. 

“If you’d just said something, I would’ve taken you to get a friggin’ T-shirt sometime,” Lance says. 

“Well, it never seemed all that important,” Pidge says absently, swiping at the back of his neck. “I think I missed a tag.” 

“Hah! Nerd. I’ll get it.” There’s an experimental tug on his collar, then heat and a huff of breath as Lance dips down and bites through the plasfiber thread, and something about it makes Pidge startle and squirm a little. 

“That’s really bad for your teeth,” he says, trying to push that sensation away, as Lance stands up and crumples the tag. 

But Lance only grins at him. “Doesn’t matter, they’re all poly-alloy implants on this side anyway.” 

“Oh,” says Pidge, “that’s right-- I forgot about your _old man dentures_ \--” 

“You ungrateful little _shit!_ ” Lance lunges for him and Pidge darts out of the way. 

“I forgot _all_ about them,” he says brightly, keeping just out of reach. “Sorry, am I moving too fast, is this too hard on your elderly bones?” 

Lance looks torn between laughter and murder, which is not such an uncommon expression on him these days, with Daniel around. “I see how it is,” he says, “you fucking _infant_.” 

Pidge hops up onto the low rim of a fountain, sidling away from Lance, who keeps advancing on him. “Tell me about your planet’s first manned spaceflights,” he says sweetly. “Were they exciting? What was first contact like?” 

“I’ll give you contact,” Lance growls playfully, and makes a swipe for him; Pidge skitters back. The people around them, he notices belatedly, are starting to turn and look at them. “I’ll push your bony ass right into that fountain, pigeon.” 

“Don’t make me pick out all the coins _again_ , dad,” Pidge says, edging along the lip of the fountain as Lance comes closer. 

“Nah, Daniel’s junior now, you’ve ranked up to jimmying the vending machines open--” They both look around at the sound of a splash and a squawk, to see that somebody’s small child has fallen off the rim and into the fountain. A harassed-looking mother gives them both a look that promises a lecture for setting a bad example, just as soon as she’s finished fishing her daughter out. 

Lance lifts Pidge off the fountain and sets him back on the floor. “Time to go,” he says with a grin, and they beat a hasty retreat out of the hall, Lance steering Pidge by means of an arm looped around his shoulders. 

“We’re made,” Pidge says, trying not to laugh. “We’re _so nailed_ , Lance. She looked _right at us_.” 

“We are not nailed, okay,” Lance tells him, “we are completely nail-free, there are no nails and we are simple tourists. We just have to, you know . . . avoid that lady for the rest of the week.” 

Pidge tries to keep his voice quiet, but can’t stop himself from a falsetto, “Excuse me, where’s the manager? Two of those _Lion hoodlums_ just threw my child in a fountain--” 

“Shut _up_ , holy shit.” Lance looks around with a slightly wild-eyed grin. 

Pidge snorts. “Please, I bet ten people already heard you when you asked for a Voltron Force discount on those clothes.” 

Lance rumples up his hair. “Nobody knows. Who the hell am I? You wanna know something, bird? You’d be amazed how much of what people recognize is just the uniform, especially when our faces have been off the radar for five or six years.” He glances down at his Voltcom, collapsed into what appears to be an innocuous chrono, and Pidge wraps his left hand around his own right wrist watching him. “Hey, come on, if we keep dicking around we’re gonna miss our entry.” 

“Entry into what?” 

Lance digs in a jacket pocket, pulling out two digitickets. “There’s some kind of, I don’t know, art installation upstairs-- a bunch of mechanisms from Jarre? Sounded like the kind of thing you’d be into.” 

“Mechanisms-- oh!” Realization dawns. “The gear gardens of Jarre? I’ve heard of those.” 

“That was it.” Lance looks down at him expectantly. 

It’s . . . okay, it’s not something Pidge would have _chosen_ , necessarily. But Lance looks so pleased with himself, and he’s been trying so hard, that Pidge can’t help smiling up at him anyway. Even if he’s more into programming than gearwork, it’ll be interesting (and maybe he can take some pictures for Hunk, this actually would be right up his alley). 

It doesn’t escape him for a moment that Lance would probably infinitely rather be poolside and five drinks deep, but instead he’s trying to find things to cheer _Pidge_ up. Pidge wonders why, and his mind helpfully flicks back to last night, which he’s been determinedly avoiding thinking about. Lance hasn’t brought it up, and he’s hopeful that maybe it’ll go into the long list of Things We Don’t Mention, or-- even better-- that it was mostly some weird dream, just filling in the gaps where Lance was too tall for the couch and rolled into the bed instead. 

(It wasn’t, he knows it wasn’t; and he knows this is Lance’s reaction to seeing that weak broken thing last night-- that all this is a daylight extension of being held tight and warm in the darkness. But maybe he can make Lance believe that it’s all over now, that he’s fixed it, that Pidge is back at full capacity and there’s no need to push any further. Because if he can’t do this, if he is broken, then he’s--) 

All this in a moment, and then Lance’s hands are on his shoulders. “Pidgey? Hey, bird, are you okay? We don’t have to go do that if you don’t want to, I just thought--” 

“No!” Pidge blurts out, and then more steadily he manages, “No, I do want to.” Lance still looks uncertain, so Pidge smiles. “We should go see them anyway. I heard the newest parts were actually built after Jarre was liberated by the Voltron Force, years ago.” 

“Those heroes,” Lance says lightly, and steers him toward an elevator. 

But some sour note has been struck, and there’s an awkwardness between them now. Pidge bites his lip, looking away from his reflection in the elevator’s polished wall. Now that the thoughts of last night, of the dreams, of everything are _circling_ in his brain again, he can’t push them back down. There’s nothing here to keep his attention focused away from it all, and it whirls and blinks in his mind like an unending stream, every moment of failing and falling on loop. 

“Pidge--” 

“I’m _fine!_ ” he says, more abruptly than he means to, and then looks up, remembering to smile. “I mean--” 

“This is our floor,” Lance says. 

* * *

It _is_ pretty. The hall is filled with elaborate mechanical flowers and trees and animals, all of them enameled in ornate patterns. At the push of a button, the flowers bloom, the birds sing, the waterfalls flow, and if Pidge happens to be of the private opinion that a little AI would go a long way, well, nobody has to know that. There aren’t many people in the exhibit hall, and they’re easily the youngest ones here. 

He . . . no, he does like it. Definitely. Some of the smaller mechanisms are in glass cases, to show the multiplicity of tiny spinning cogs and gears and wheels and chains, and there’s something soothing about watching a closed system in perfect working order, if he ignores the part where it slowly starts winding down. 

He can see Lance approaching in reflection on the surface of the case. Lance looks a little bemused by it all, but he gives Pidge a hopeful smile. 

“You know,” Pidge tells him, “they remind me a little bit of the data plants on Balto.” He looks up. “They’re artificial plants to process the air, but anybody can plug into them to access the national and local data streams. They can answer questions and give directions -- store owners and landlords light them up different colors for holidays.” 

Lance hums thoughtfully. “And these ones just sort of flap around being lame.” 

“Oh, no-- I didn’t mean that!” Pidge says, feeling a flush creep across his face. 

But Lance just laughs-- maybe a little too loud, since an elderly couple on the other side of the room shoot him identical looks of chelonian disapproval before pointedly moving into the next room. “You look bored out of your skull.” He looks down at Pidge, and although his smile lingers, his eyes are alert and serious. “Hey. Come sit down for a minute. Let’s talk.” 

Here it is. Pidge has known it’s coming since they’d gotten off the elevator. He shakes his head and smiles. “Lance-- I don’t-- I don’t think we need to do that. Not here, anyway. I mean, it’ll be pretty disruptive.” 

“There’s nobody else in here,” Lance says, evenly. “Those Khielns were the only other ones in here with us and they just rolled out, and this was the last open hour so nobody else is coming in.” 

He planned this. He _planned_ this-- Pidge takes a deep breath. Okay, it’s generally impossible to block Lance outright, but sometimes he can be successfully deflected. “Let’s finish going through the exhibit first,” Pidge temporizes. “And then after that maybe we can--” 

“Let’s do it now.” 

“There’s nothing to talk about!” Pidge says, his voice sliding up just a little. “Lance, if this is about last night-- look, you’re making a big deal out of nothing, it was just a _bad dream!_ ” All around him, enamel butterflies open and close their wings and miniature lions open their mouths in soundless roars, surreal and fake and unsettling. Pidge can feel his breath start coming faster, and his palms start to sweat. 

“Pidge--” 

“And you have no business trying to talk to me anyway!” he says, sharp and shrill and desperate to do something, anything to throw Lance off his trail, even if all he can think of to do now is to try and set Lance’s temper ablaze. “You’re worse than I am! At least I don’t take my problems out on, on everybody in the room! Do you want me to have a tantrum, like you always do? Who do you think you are to try and _f-fix_ me?” 

Lance takes a sharp breath, and Pidge puts his hands to his face. “I,” he says, and guilt and remorse settle like cold weights into his stomach beside the anxiety, as the fog of panic retreats. “Lance, I-- I’m so sorry, I--” He takes a shaky breath, and sniffs. “I didn’t mean--” 

When Lance’s hands touch his face, they’re careful and clumsy and gentle, like someone trying to hold a fallen hatchling without hurting it. “Pidgey, it’s okay. Hey. Hey. Look up at me.” 

Pidge shuts his eyes tight for a moment, then looks up. “I’m sorry,” he says miserably. “I-- I just-- I can’t. I’m sorry. I’m sorry--” 

“I’ll talk,” Lance says. “All you have to do is listen. Okay?” One thumb brushes under Pidge’s left eye. “Okay, bird?” 

It’s almost a relief to have the decisions be taken out of his hands. Pidge lets himself be led to a bench along one wall, and sits without protest. 

Lance sits too, straight-backed-- and then hesitates and fidgets. He taps on the polished wood of the bench with two fingers, and around them the mechanical figures slowly wind to a halt, the lights not turning off but dimming as the exhibit box office closes for the evening. 

Finally, he takes a quick, rattling breath. His words come out in staccato bursts. “You-- do you remember when that eye probe was flying around Arus?” He glances over to see Pidge nod, and then looks straight ahead again. “I ran off to chase it. And I flew as well as I ever did. I was _great_ out there, I pushed Red like I never did before. And _she_ was great, she tried, but-- it couldn’t be done.” 

He shifts forward in a sudden jolt, resting his elbows on his knees. “It _couldn’t be done_. And that was hard because-- because that’s what I _do_ , right? You do crazy things with tech and I do crazy things up in the air. Maybe Keith could fly better than I did up there, _maybe_ , but it wouldn’t have mattered because _Red_ couldn’t do it. Our fastest Lion just couldn't keep up.” Lance lets out a sharp little _hah_ of mirthless laughter. “And then, Daniel-- of all people, the _tagalong_ , right-- some snotnosed little tween who still would’ve been two years away from his first flight class if we hadn’t grabbed him-- he hops in for a joyride, plugs himself into Red, and he _does it_.” 

Pidge feels a weird twinge of guilt. “Lance-- you know that was--” 

“Pidge,” Lance says, and looks over at him. There’s something painfully earnest in his face. “Just-- just let me get this out, while I still can, okay?” His hands move haltingly in the air. “I-- when that happened, I lost it. Well, you know, you were there for most of it. And I know I went overboard, I know I blasted the poor kid. I knew it when I was doing it.” He shifts, quarter-turning to face Pidge instead of the cases. “I was _scared_ , that’s what nobody got. Except the Princess. I was _panicking_.” 

“You?” Pidge says, because to him panic is blood pounding in his ears like static, is data flashing meaningless before his eyes, is cold sweat and gasping breath and white-knuckled hands. Lance had been all fire and fury, and Pidge can remember tensing up, ready to stop Lance from physically attacking Daniel. It hadn’t looked like panic-- it had looked like rage, and jealousy, and spite. 

“Yeah,” Lance says. He looks down, and his voice lowers. “I-- I just knew he’d done something I couldn’t. Not something I _didn’t_ do, not something I hadn’t-- hadn’t thought of or already tried, but something I tried to do and I _couldn’t_. And all I could think was that I’d just had my feet kicked out from under me, that he was going to land in Red and I was going to land on my ass.” Lance lifts his head, but his eyes are still flicked off to one side, not meeting Pidge’s own. “And I thought-- Allura figured it out before I did, before I put it in words, I mean. But it just made me realize--” He does look at Pidge now, and his eyes are dark and unreadable in the low light. “If I’m not the Red Lion pilot, who am I?” 

“Lance,” Pidge begins, and stops, not sure of what to say. He can’t imagine what it’s costing Lance to tell him this. 

“The point is,” Lance says abruptly, and he stops too, looking down. The spill of his words seems to have dried up, leaving him struggling again. “The point is-- you don’t have to act like it doesn’t hurt. Like it’s . . . like it’s nothing, like nothing is wrong. And look, I get not wanting other people to know this stuff is happening, I _get it_ , but--” He glances over with a smile that’s more uncertain than Pidge has ever seen him look. “I already know, because it happened to me, so-- you can throw it at me when you have to. I can take it.” 

Pidge lets out a deep breath, looking away from Lance’s face because it’s overwhelming him-- there’s so much-- to process, so much to understand, so much that he’s realizing only after Lance has taken this risk and bared this ugly, vulnerable part of himself. All to prove that _Pidge_ can do it. All to show that _he_ isn’t alone. 

He finds he’s plucking mindlessly at the sleeve of his hoodie, and he stands up, jamming his hands into the pockets to try to keep them still. 

“Lance,” Pidge says. Lance looks over at him, and he finds he can’t quite look him in the eye. He looks down instead, and swallows. “There’s something I want to tell you. I . . . I owe you an apology.” 

He sneaks a glance back up at Lance’s face. Lance looks baffled. “For what? Earlier? Pidge, look, I know you were--” 

“No, not that-- well, that too really, but I wasn’t talking about that.” Pidge turns his attention to one of the displays, looking at interlocking gears without seeing them. “When Daniel took Red to chase that probe,” he says, “and you were so upset-- I thought you were overreacting, too. Just like everyone else. He’d done something that we needed and I didn’t understand why you were so angry at him.” He presses the button to start the mechanism and stares as it slowly spins to life, a painted cat twitching the miniscule interlocking segments of its tail as a bird opens its beak to sing a music-box song. 

“Pidge,” Lance says, “you don’t have to--” 

“You’ve been so nice,” Pidge says, and abruptly takes his glasses off, turning them over and over in his hands. The world turns a little softer for the moment, thankfully. “You’ve done all this, and you’re trying so hard, and I . . . didn’t do any of this for you. Not back then, when you needed it. I didn’t say anything.” He tries to smile. “I thought you were being a jealous, petty jerk.” 

“I mean,” Lance says, after a moment, “you’d be right most of the time.” There’s an awkward, hollow jokiness to his voice. It fades away, replaced with uncertainty. “I-- owe you one, too.” 

Pidge looks back at him and smiles, just a little. “After everything? After all this?” 

Lance smiles too, lopsidedly. “Because I _knew how it felt_ , Pidge, and I was just so goddamn glad to have one less cadet who might be gunning for my seat that I let you hand over Green anyway. You even _said_ it was hard to give her up, but I just let it all go by until it got to-- here.” 

“It was best for the team, though.” Pidge goes back to the bench and sits, but closer together this time. He can feel the heat radiating off Lance, even before Lance pulls him in so that they’re leaning together. 

“Who gives a shit,” Lance says, almost absently. “Who fucking cares, I should’ve said something.” Pidge smiles again, against Lance’s shoulder, because this is really as Lance as it gets-- the big picture forgotten the moment someone in front of him is hurting. “Allura took a month of meditation and, whatever it is she does, séances or some shit to decide she was ready to give up her Lion. You did it after one bad day.” 

There’s a beat, and then Lance’s arm tenses around him. “Pidgey. Hey.” His voice is slow, like he’s piecing this together for the first time. “It-- wasn’t just one bad day, was it.” 

“That’s . . . not exactly it, but--” Pidge smiles wanly. “You could say it was the final component of the decision, I guess. But-- it’s not really just about Green--” 

“What was it?” Lance says, and Pidge shivers. 

“It’s . . .” 

A beam of bright white light sweeps over his face, and they both jump. In front of them, a security guard frowns down at them, his eye looking them up and down. “What are you two doing in here? This exhibit closed half an hour ago.” 

Pidge freezes, and Lance breaks out a bright, insincere smile. “Oh! It did? I’m sorry, we were just sitting here talking and I guess we lost track of the time. Isn’t that right, Darrell?” 

It’s been so long since he heard that name that he almost forgets to respond, but he sits up and adjusts his glasses, blinking owlishly up at the guard. “Yes, I’m _so_ sorry, I was just telling Charles here all about how the rack-and-pinion gears are used to make the people walk along the track there, and--” 

He can almost _see_ the weariness on the guard’s face. “All right, folks, I understand, just come with me and I’ll escort you to the exit.” 

They file obediently through the rest of the rooms, and just before the doorway back into the main hall, Pidge nudges Lance, nodding toward a display of five colorful lions that no doubt would spring into a single figure at the push of the red-lit button. 

Lance grins mischievously down at him, and then looks back at the guard. “Hey, hey mister, you think we have time for _just one_ photo?” 

* * *

“I cannot believe he let you take the picture.” 

“It was probably my charm. I’m a naturally charming person.” 

Pidge snorts. 

“Okay, rude.” 

“I think it had more to do with you flashing that unlimited bank chip than it did with your hypothetical charm.” 

“ _Hypothetical?_ ” Out here, leaving the darkened art hall for the main corridor, they find themselves in among a rush of people-- running the gamut from elegant eveningwear to tourists with oversized cameras and strings of variously drippy kids. 

“Lance,” Pidge says, and stops, and takes off his glasses again, fussing at the lenses. He’s wearing regular glasses instead of his usual smart ones, and they feel different and weird on his face. He hasn’t worn them since they were part of his public Tech Sergeant Stoker persona at the Garrison. “Um. Thank you. For-- telling me all that.” He takes a deep breath, and says it before he loses his nerve. “Do we-- do we have time for me to finish explaining, before we have to meet with Manset?” 

“Yes,” Lance says without hesitation. “Yeah. Yes. Let’s go back up to the room.” 

“Shouldn’t we stay down here where we’re supposed to--” 

“No,” Lance tells him, already pulling him along. “Forget about it. Forget Manset, he can wait an hour. It won’t kill him.” 

Pidge boggles, stumbling to catch up. “What do you mean forget him? He’s the whole reason we’re here, don’t be irresponsible!” 

“Okay, I’m irresponsible,” Lance says, looking down at him, “and you’re way more important. This isn’t even up for debate. Let’s go.” 

Pidge’s breath catches and his eyes widen, because-- he’s not sure anybody has _ever_ told him that, and Lance said it like it was the most obvious thing in the universe. 

He finds himself, once again, in a space where he doesn’t know what to do. He can construct an argument for going, or for staying. He can look at the short term and the long term and the big picture and the here-and-now. Logic can take him in any direction he chooses to go, and it’s almost paralyzing. 

He takes a deep breath, and pulls on Lance’s hand to stop him. 

Lance looks down at him. “Pidge--” 

“There’s a staff elevator back down that hall we just passed,” Pidge says. “While you were out, one of the things I did was get the blueprints of the whole resort.” He grins up at Lance, nervous and hopeful. “It’ll be a lot faster, so I’ll have less time to change my mind.” 

Lance breaks into a broad answering smile, letting Pidge pull him back. “So right after we have a brush with security, you’re inveigling me into another dark hallway where we’re not supposed to be.” 

Pidge laughs, just a little, not so much because of what Lance said as just because he’s-- there, and stupid, and still holding Pidge’s hand after everything that’s happened. “I guess we’ll have to count on your definitely not hypothetical charm to keep us out of trouble.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The little girl who fell into the fountain and had to be fished out by her harassed, monotonous mother was Tammy from DotU ep 11. Just sayin'.


	6. I got no reason for the state I'm in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile in the Castle of Lions: Daniel and Vince.

It takes a literal voice in his head to snap Vince out of his own thoughts. _Vince!_

He jolts and looks around wildly, before logic hops in and tells him there’s only one person it could possibly be. “Daniel?”

And sure enough, there’s Daniel coming through the doorway from the north wing. “I’ve been calling you for like . . . five minutes, Vince. I know your new favorite thing to do is hang around and mope about Pidge, but seriously?”

Vince glances down at his wrist in confusion, and sees the tiny notification blinking. He clears it with a swipe, and leans back in his chair to look up at Daniel, crossing his arms. “Sorry I missed it, but I was thinking.” He flicks a blank display up between them and draws a mustache over Daniel’s face with a fingertip. “And I _don’t_ mope about Pidge, snartface.”

Daniel snorts. “No, not you. You just--” he ducks under the display, “--spend all your time here, at his boring control panels, _sighing_.”

“For your information? I’m taking over the Castle defenses at Keith and Allura’s _request_ while Pidge is away.”

Daniel cocks his head and grins down at him. “You’re sleeping in his sock drawer, aren’t you?”

Vince puts his arms behind his head. “That’s rich coming from Captain Fanboy.” He sits up, wide-eyed, and puts on an excited squeak. ‘Hey, hey Lance, come watch me fight your Lotor sim! Lance! Are you looking? Lance! Hey! Hey Lance! Lance you’re not looking! Lance, take me on your secret mission! Haha I didn’t call Lance dad, what--”

“Shut up, I do not fanboy over Lance.” Daniel shoves Vince’s chair. “I fanboy over _Keith._ ”

“And once again, he’s wrong on so many levels.” Vince types in a command, and a second chair materializes. “Step into my office.”

He slides it away at the last minute, and Daniel lands flat on his ass. “ _Whoops._ ”

“Wow,” Daniel says, the laughter in his voice belying his words, “quality humor from Vince Parker, he’ll be here all week, folks. Right here. Crying softly for Pidge, probably rubbing his face on the control panels, maybe pantsless? Who can say?”

“What the actual hell, Daniel. That thought just-- came into your head, huh? And you decided to say it? ‘Yeah’, you said to yourself, ‘this is a good thought I’m having’--”

“Don’t get mad just because I figured out your weekend plans.” Daniel plops into the chair and looks at Vince. “Okay-- seriously, though. I know something’s really been bothering you, you’ve been weird, like . . . ever since Lance and Pidge left.”

Vince leans his chin on one hand, glances up at the screens, and sighs. “Okay, don’t be a dick about this, but it actually is about Pidge-- Daniel. _Stop_ being sarcastic with your _face_.”

“Sarcastic? I’m being surprised. This is my surprised face.”

Vince throws a stylus at him. “I mean it. It’s like he’s . . . avoiding us lately. Hunk says he’s practically never in the hangar, he’s barely been around for _classes_ , it’s like-- I don’t know, it’s like every time you see him he’s rushing away to do something else.” He taps despondently at the keypad. “It used to be awesome hanging around with Pidge, and now I have to book an appointment a week in advance.”

“Ever since you took over Green.”

“I know, but--” Vince looks mournfully over at Daniel.

Daniel rolls his eyes. “Vince, Pidge does _not_ hate you, but you took his Lion, dude! He probably feels weird about it! And here you come in his uniform-- well not his _actual uniform_ , gross, but-- anyway, here you come with _his_ uniform and _his_ key and _his_ Lion.”

“But it was _his_ idea!” Vince says, a little desperately. “It’s not like I snatched them out of his hands!”

“Dude, maybe it doesn’t happen to you, but let me assure you that I have tons of ideas that I immediately regret following up on. That’s totally a thing.”

Vince looks down at the key embedded in his Voltcom. “You think he regrets it, huh?”

Daniel’s eyes widen. “Vince, no, look, that’s not what I meant--” He runs his hands through his hair. “Look. I was an official Lion pilot for like . . . two days, and losing my Lion sucked. Pidge has been a Lion pilot since he was twelve, so multiply that by like . . . _twelve hundred suck_. It’s not that he regrets giving Green up to _you_ , it’s just that it’s crappy to do at all. Lance practically beat the life out of me when he thought he’d lose his Lion, so you’re getting off easy, right?”

He looks so earnest that Vince almost wants to laugh. “Lance practically beats the life out of you on a daily basis, dude.” He flexes his hand. Having weird data powers is cool and everything, but the connections have left his fingertips sort of . . . permanently numb. “You really think Pidge will be okay?”

“Yeah,” Daniel says. “I mean, it’s gonna take more than a week, but. Of course he will.”

Vince looks up at the ceiling and hums a thoughtful note. “So do you really think that, or is that just a blatantly transparent attempt to make me feel better?”

“Who says it can’t be both?”

Daniel has a way of making things seem simple. Maybe this time, they are. It’d sure be nice.

Vince looks at him. “What were you even calling about?”

Daniel lights up and leans forward. “I had this great idea to get Lance back for not taking us with them-- okay, I _get it_ , point taken, quit doing that with your face. Anyway, we should totally mess with the settings on his sparring sims. I know Pidge programmed them in the first place, and I know _you_ can crack into them.”

Vince frowns. “Daniel, somebody could really get hurt if I raise the levels on--”

“I’m not saying make it lethal, dude! I’m saying crank it up _just_ enough so he can’t beat it and he can’t figure out why. Come on, I know you can screw up all the settings to the exact decimal point where he keeps getting his butt kicked in a completely non-lethal fashion.”

Vince considers this, and looks around the control room. It’s huge, and gleaming, which he knows firsthand because Lance’s sick idea of entertainment is watching cadets scrub floors for hours.

“Doesn’t Larmina sneak in and use his sims, too?” he asks, musingly.

“Didn’t Larmina literally, not figuratively, spank you with her staff in the dojo yesterday?”

Their eyes meet, and Vince grins. “I think Lotor is definitely in need of a little tuneup.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much like Lance, Daniel is stupid in a lot of ways, but very sharp when it comes to people. Like father, like son: think about it, won't you?


	7. Oftentimes those words get tangled up in lines

Lance had been prepared for a few different eventualities, because forcing Pidge into a corner isn’t the kind of plan anybody should undertake without seriously considering the potential consequences. He’d expected a certain amount of stonewalling, which had happened. He’d expected maybe yelling, because that's what _he'd_ do, and that had happened too. He’d uncertainly accepted the possibility of causing some kind of panic attack, which had happened, or tears, which hadn’t (and thank god, because one round of Pidge tears was more than enough for the rest of his entire life, thanks). There was even a slim but non-zero chance of violence that he’d taken into account, and bravely carried on in spite of, because he’s just that great a guy. 

So really, all things considered, he’d been very strategic, _Keith_ , and he had planned for the consequences of his actions, _Allura_ , and he’d successfully improvised tactics, _Sven_ , even if that improvisation had involved him spilling his guts more than he’d originally planned-- since the original plan had involved a solid zero gut-spillage and about a hundred percent more Pidge-based revelation. 

What Lance hadn’t been prepared for was this weird, mundane point where they’re back in the suite with everything like they’d left it-- laundry on the rumpled bed and the cold remains of breakfast on the table and the two of them looking at each other uncertainly. 

Admittedly, the room is still a mess because between Pidge’s data and his fifty-cal, Lance had specified no cleaning staff in the room when at least one of them wasn’t there (and Pidge had jammed the lockpad, just to be sure). But deep in his soul, he suspects resignedly that it’s probably some big fucking metaphor the universe wants to clock him with: _It’s your mess. If anybody’s going to clean all this up, it’s going to be the two of you._

“Um,” Pidge says, sounding a little timid. He holds his right wrist with his left hand, then abruptly flurries his hands into his pockets when he follows Lance’s gaze and realizes what he’s doing. The end of his nose and the tips of his ears go a little pink. “How do we, um. How do we start?” 

“I’m not sure,” Lance admits. “I was kinda hoping you’d have an idea.” Pidge smiles a little crookedly and looks down and Lance-- files that reaction away. 

“Why’d you stop wearing your Voltcom?” he asks, changing tack. “You keep grabbing your arm. You did it earlier.” 

Pidge looks back up and tilts his head. “Does that--” He hesitates, and then sits on the bed, giving Lance a mildly grouchy look. “I could do with a little less of you _noticing things_ , to be honest.” 

Lance throws a sock at his face, in the most supportive possible way, and goes to sit beside him. “Level with me, bird. You still feel like you need it, or you wouldn’t carry it around.” 

“Obviously I _need_ it,” Pidge says, pulling his feet up to sit cross-legged on the bed. He fidgets with one of the cuffs on his hoodie. “For the same reason the cadets need them. Not that they're still cadets. But. It’s a commlink, it’s a processor, it still manifests my shield and my throwing stars . . .” 

“So why’d you stop wearing it?” Lance reaches behind him for a pillow and gives it to Pidge, who hugs it. 

“It’s going to sound stupid,” he mumbles. Then he sighs. “Because every time I looked at it, it made me remember that I wasn’t part of the team anymore.” 

“Hold up,” Lance says abruptly. “Sorry, but that’s bullshit. You’re absolutely part of the team. You’re _always_ gonna be part of the team.” 

Pidge’s response is worryingly un-spiky. “Weren’t you saying earlier that you didn’t know what you’d be if you didn’t have Red?” 

“That’s not the same,” Lance says, but it’s weak, and he knows it, and he knows Pidge will call him out on it. 

“How is it not the same?” 

“It just-- isn’t,” he says, lamely. 

Pidge droops visibly and hugs the pillow more tightly against himself, like a shield. He turns his face away. “Okay.” 

No no _no_ , god, he can’t have Pidge shut him out now. “All right, Jesus, don’t be-- it’s just--” He takes a deep breath. “Because you’re not the same, okay? Because you do things that nobody else can. I don’t understand what you do, half of it sounds like _magic_ to me. You-- invent stuff, you practically rebuilt the Lions, you probably understand more about how they work than anybody else in the universe does.” He flops onto his back and sighs. “There’s tons of dumb hotshot flyboys out there who can do exactly what I do, Pidge, I trained about two hundred of ‘em myself, but nobody can do what you do.” 

“There are whole planets full of people who can do what I do,” Pidge says. His brow creases a little. “Is that really-- do you really think that’s all you are to us? Just a pilot?” 

“Do you think we just look at you as tech support?” 

“That seemed to be the point you were making about a minute ago.” Pidge shrugs his bony little shoulders. “If you put out a call to Balto, you’d get a hundred people who could do everything I’m doing. Maybe better.” 

“Yeah, and none of them would be _you_ , Pidge. We--” he hesitates for just a breath, “--love you, bird, you’re family.” 

Pidge gives him a wobbly smile. “Terrans will bond with anything, if you give them enough time.” 

“Well, we picked you, so you’re bonded and you can deal.” 

Pidge picks at a thread on the pillowcase. “What would you have done, if you lost Red? What . . . will you do, when it happens? It has to happen someday, right?” 

“Don’t compare, I already told you it’s not the same. You . . . still have something important to do, even without Green.” Lance stares up. “Who paints fucking little-- alien cherubs or whatever those are on a ceiling?” 

“Cherubim,” Pidge says absently, unraveling the thread. “I think they’re supposed to be charming.” 

“Ugh.” Lance turns his head so he’s looking at Pidge instead, which is a much nicer prospect. “What were you going to say before? About giving up Green to Vince. You said something about-- other components.” 

Pidge pulls the thread out and starts twisting it between his fingers. After a moment he says, “Do you think it’s strange that we always acted like the Lions were sort of alive? Even before the Nexus.” 

“No. They _look_ alive. I always thought it was weird that they all had different faces. And ears.” 

“And tails, even before we modified them.” 

“Always wondered about that.” 

“Like they’re individuals.” 

_Why would somebody have locked the Nexus away like that?_ comes the echo in his mind from where he’s submerged it. He pushes it back under again. “What were you going to say before, Pidge?” 

“I’m . . .” Pidge scoots around to face him. “I’m getting to it. I’m trying to. Really.” He offers another uncertain smile. “This is . . . hard. Even though it shouldn’t be. I shouldn’t have a problem with this, and that’s part of the problem.” 

Lance resists the urge to break in again. After a moment Pidge continues, sounding uncertain. “It’s . . . everything’s so different. Whatever happened to create haggarium, it changed _everything_. And I feel like I can’t keep up.” He looks so small, curled around the pillow. “I’ve said ‘I don’t know’ more in the past year than I think I ever have in the rest of my life put together. Things don’t make _sense_ to me anymore.” A shaky breath. “That’s bad enough, but when I realized I was saying it in battles, where lives were on the line-- where _your_ lives were on the line-- I--” He shakes his head. “I can’t put all of you in danger like that. I can’t risk your _lives_ for my ego. Not . . . not when there’s somebody around who _does_ have the answers.” 

“Come here,” Lance says thickly, and Pidge curls up in the crook of his arm and lets himself be held. 

“I _tried_ ,” Pidge says in a small voice, and Lance’s chest hurts, and just when he thinks it can’t feel any worse Pidge says, “I tried so hard but it just wasn’t enough. And now I’m just making more trouble for you because I can’t-- can’t handle anything.” He shuts his eyes tight. “I’m sorry, Lance.” 

“It’s okay,” Lance says, hugging him tight, “it’s okay--” The words are trying to tumble out of his mouth so fast that they’re getting caught on each other. “You’re not-- you’re not making trouble, Pidge, you’re not, it’s okay-- don’t be sorry, _I’m_ sorry--” 

“Lance, calm down--” 

“We expected you to spit out all the answers on command,” Lance says into the mass of fluffy hair under his chin, and rubs between his shoulders, as much to soothe himself as Pidge. “We put all that pressure on you.” 

“I’m _supposed_ to find the answers,” Pidge mumbles against his chest. “And now I can’t.” He tugs off his glasses. “All I can do is . . . waste everybody’s time before it gets handed over to Vince.” 

“You don’t _waste_ our time,” Lance says incredulously. 

Pidge is quiet for a moment. “It was the right decision,” he finally says. 

“No it wasn’t!” Lance snaps. “Vince isn’t _better_ than you! You’re not some computer that gets junked when the next one comes around!” 

Pidge sighs. “Lance, calm _down_.” His hand, laid on Lance’s chest, is slim and long-fingered and nimble. When had that happened to Pidge’s chubby, grubby little paws, exactly, Lance wonders. 

“It isn’t fair,” he says helplessly. 

“But it was still the best decision for the team.” Grown or not, his hand still disappears when Lance closes his own around it. 

“I don’t think Vince even _understands_ half the stuff he does,” Lance says irritably, as Pidge starts curling and uncurling his fingers. 

“I think Vince is learning more and more about what he can do,” Pidge counters quietly, inspecting the callus on Lance’s trigger finger. “He’s been the catalyst for so many changes to Voltron. Things I never even imagined it’d be capable of.” 

“We would’ve figured it out. _You_ would’ve figured it out.” 

Pidge huffs out a little laugh. “ _If_ I did, it would’ve been too late.” His eyes are half-closed. “Allura says that Voltron is evolving. That this is how it’s supposed to be.” 

“ _Does_ she,” Lance growls. He’s going to have words with the Princess when he gets back. 

Pidge looks up. “You don’t think so?” 

“I don’t care, bird! I don’t really give a flying fuck if the cadets descended in a beam of light with a heavenly choir singing about how they’re the chosen ones!” Lance is so frustrated and angry that it feels like it’s crawling all over his skin, making him bristle. “I’m worried about _you_ , and your nightmares and your panic attacks and everything else that I _don’t_ know about. Forget destiny and forget being good enough, okay? Stop explaining why this doesn’t matter and tell me _what’s wrong_.” 

Pidge stares at him. His particolored eyes are wide open now. His mouth opens, and closes, and he swallows. 

“I,” he says, and swallows again. “I hate it.” 

Lance holds his breath. 

“I _hate it!_ ” Pidge’s fist abruptly pounds against the mattress. “I fought in a _war!_ I flew for seven years, I spent five more undercover to get the Lions back! _Half my life!_ ” Pidge’s voice is getting ragged and his eyes are still wide, but they look like they’re filling with tears. “ _We_ woke the Lions up! _We_ won the war! It took me away from my brother, my world, everything--” He draws a deep, shaking breath, and the first drop falls hot on Lance’s face. “I worked so hard! I invented weapons and alloys and coding to make the Lions stronger! Vince can connect to the Nexus because of programming that that _I_ designed for the Voltcoms!” 

He takes a deep breath, and then another, closing his eyes tight. Lance reaches up gingerly to touch his face, and then hesitates when he speaks again. 

“I worked so hard,” Pidge says, sounding like a lost child. “I never tried to have anything else. I didn’t ask for more.” He looks down at Lance, pleading. “Why wasn’t I good enough?” 

Lance pulls him back down and holds him tight. “You were,” he says, “you are,” and Pidge makes a thin keening sound that cuts right through him. 

“I’m not,” he gulps out, “I’m not, not anymore-- you don’t _need_ me anymore--” 

“We do,” Lance murmurs, letting Pidge sob into his neck, “we do, we’re always gonna need you, Pidgey--” His fingers catch in Pidge’s hair, stroking. _Don’t cry_ , he almost says, and catches himself. “It’s okay,” he says instead, “go ahead, it’s okay-- I’ve got you.” 

* * *

Pidge sits up after a while, blotchy-faced and sniffling. He pulls his sleeve across his eyes, and looks down at Lance. 

Lance pushes himself up on his elbows, and Pidge bites his lip, glancing away. “I’m sorry,” he says. 

“You feel better?” Lance asks him, pushing his damp fringe up off his forehead, and gently tweaking his chin for good measure. Much to his surprise, that earns him just the ghost of a smile. 

“I’m not sure,” Pidge says. He lowers his eyes and Lance can see how long his wet lashes are-- and then he abruptly thinks, _I could do with a little less of you noticing things too, asshole_. 

“Then let me ask you something else,” Lance says, to push his attention back to where it needs to be. “What do you want to do?” 

Pidge paws around for his glasses, finds them, and busies himself cleaning them on his sleeve before frowning down and trying to clean them with part of the sheet. “I want to have dinner,” he says, and looks up. “Do you mind if it’s just room service again? I know you probably wanted to go try one of the restaurants at _some_ point, but--” 

“No, that’s fine, Pidgey, but I meant-- about the team.” Lance can’t quite keep the laughter out of his voice, and Pidge blinks. Then he giggles, just a little. 

“I’m not sure about that either,” he says, and smiles up at Lance with his flushed face and wet lashes. “But I’m starving and I _definitely_ want some fries.” 

Lance gently pushes him over. “I think that can be arranged. The other stuff can probably wait.” 

Pidge pops back up. “Lance--” 

“You can’t get _just_ fries, so don’t ask.” 

“-- why are you doing all this?” 

On the one hand, there’s a very easy answer. On the other hand, it’s not an answer Pidge needs to have on his already cluttered plate right now. Or ever. “Why do you think?” 

Pidge shakes his head. “I don’t know.” 

“Hm!” Lance says, and opens the dinner display from the menu. 

“Lance!” Pidge scoots forward. “Why?” 

Lance pushes him back down with one arm, perusing the menu. “What even is bou-- boola--” 

“ _Why_ , Lance?” 

“This stuff.” Lance shows him. 

“Fish soup. _Why?_ ” 

“Sounds gross.” 

“ _Lance._ ” 

“What do you want, like a kid’s meal?” 

“ _Laaaance._ ” 

A beat. 

“ _Lance!_ ” Pidge wriggles under his arm and wrests the menu away, shutting off the display. “Why?” 

“Because you’re part of my team,” which is part of the answer, “and I love you,” which is _most_ of the answer. 

It isn’t a _lie_ , it’s _ambiguously phrased_. 

Pidge leans companionably on him and gives him a fond look. “Does anybody else know what a big softy you are under the sarcasm?” 

Lance smiles lopsidedly. “No, bird,” he says, “just you.” 

Pidge settles back against him. “What happens if I can’t figure it out?” he asks solemnly, looking up. 

“What, the menu? Get whatever looks good, it’s not coming out of our pockets.” 

“No-- about the team.” Pidge sighs. “About what I’m supposed to do. Everything.” 

Lance considers that. “I don’t think you have to figure it out all at once,” he says slowly. “I mean-- there’s no time limit, y’know. I think you should-- you should find something that feels right, and not just . . . feel like you have to know everything right off the bat.” 

Pidge looks-- a little downcast. But it’s thoughtful, not shuttered. “Can I tell you something else?” he says after a moment. 

Lance takes Pidge’s hands in his own. “Yeah, go ahead.” 

“Bracing for impact?” Pidge asks, and okay, if he can make smart remarks again he must be feeling at least a _little_ better. He lets out a sigh. “This is probably really petty.” 

“Look who you’re talking to.” 

Pidge hesitates for another moment, and then blurts out, “Everything I can think of-- even running the Castle defenses-- seems like such a letdown after flying Green. Even though I know it’s still important, it’s like it’s-- not important enough for me.” 

Lance can’t help but laugh. “That’s it? That’s the big petty reveal? I’ve gotten snittier than that over Keith using my mug in the morning.” Pidge lets out an aggrieved little chirp, and Lance squeezes his hands. “Sorry. But it’s just . . . everything you’re saying is completely normal, pigeon. You made this choice because you felt like you had to, and it wasn’t fair and it overturned your whole life, and you’re upset about it. That doesn’t make you petty or selfish or a bad person or whatever the hell. Not even close.” 

Pidge burrows closer. “Do you really think that, or are you just trying to make me feel better?” 

“Why can’t it be both?” Pidge elbows him, and he laughs again. 

“Lance, really though, listen.” Pidge lets go of his hands and makes an uncomfortable-looking half-turn instead, settling against Lance’s chest. “I really . . . I’m not joking. I feel like I keep getting bumped down to nothing but tech support.” He frowns. “But I shouldn’t feel that way, should I? When I do it to myself?” 

Lance thinks about that one. “I thought,” he ventures, “I thought you really liked doing all that techy stuff.” 

“No, I do! I love it!” Pidge scrabbles up to look earnestly at him. “It’s not that, it’s not, I promise. It’s just . . . wasn’t I a good pilot, too? Programming defenses isn’t the only thing I’m good for, is it?” 

Pidge has huge, tip-tilted eyes that are a vivid-- literally unearthly, ha-- shade of green, partly darkened brown from when a broken throttle had smashed across his face. They look like the eyes of a forest guardian. It occurs to Lance then to wonder if that’s why Pidge has taken to wearing tinted lenses, to try to hide his mismatched irises. 

It also occurs to him to wonder why blunt trauma left Pidge with magical wood-sprite eyes while leaving Lance with six broken teeth, but he’d probably done something to deserve it. “Pidge,” he says, “you’re one of the best pilots I’ve ever seen, and one of the best soldiers. And nobody’s _ever_ going to change that. Nobody’s ever going to take away what you’ve done. You’re _always_ going to be a Green Lion pilot and part of the Voltron Force.” 

A thought darts through his mind, and he adds, a little annoyed, “And if you think Vince is doing things you can’t, just remember the only reason he can do it is because he’s standing on your shoulders.” 

Pidge stares up at him with a wondering gaze, all wide eyes and freckles and astonishment, like Lance has just told him something completely new. That expression wraps around something inside Lance and squeezes, almost painfully. 

“Your _skinny little shoulders_ ,” he teases, to make Pidge stop looking up at him like that, “exactly _one apple wide_ \--” 

Pidge snorts and pushes at him. “You were doing _so well_ for a minute.”


	8. So we stole and drank champagne

“We never did go see Manset,” Pidge says, pouring. 

Lance takes the glass from him. “Yeah,” he says, “I was thinking about that, and--” He cuts himself off, watching with raised eyebrows as Pidge pours a second glass. Pidge sets the bottle of Voyage down on the table and leans back. 

“You look like you have something you want to say,” he remarks. 

“Nope,” Lance says, with truly gratifying haste. 

“Are you _sure?_ ” Pidge presses. 

Lance rolls his eyes. “If you’d rather make smart remarks, I’ll drink yours.” 

Pidge grins. “Not a chance.” There’s a reason why Voyage is as expensive a brand as it is. Even if he’ll metabolize it far more quickly than Lance will, it still curls into him with bittersweet heat when he sips it. “What about Manset?” 

“Mm--” Lance swallows. “I’m surprised we didn’t hear anything, that’s all.” 

“You said he had to be away for a few days. Maybe he’s busy catching up with things here,” Pidge offers. “Or maybe he just figured it’d draw too much attention if he sent someone for us?” 

“Maybe.” Lance doesn’t quite sound convinced. He refills his glass. “I’ll catch up with him in the morning.” 

“You know,” Pidge says mischievously, “if he managed to straighten everything out without us, he might make you pay for all this.” 

“What, you’re not ready to split the bill? I mean, _you_ made the irresponsible dinner order, bird.” Which is true; faced with Lance’s apparent total indifference to his own evening meal and his airy _get whatever you want_ , Pidge had ordered the entire _right_ side of the menu. 

“I created a pleasing symmetry to your idiot breakfast order,” Pidge defends himself. “I balanced the day.” 

“Explain the dessert cart.” 

“Well, the dessert cart had a chocolate fountain, Lance.” 

“And you stuck everything else on the cart right into it.” 

“ _Chocotron_.” Pidge leans back comfortably into the pillows, looking up at the painted ceiling (which is admittedly awful, Lance was right). 

He’s not entirely sure how to classify what he’s feeling. It’s emptiness, in a way, but something different than the hollow nothingness that’s been haunting him-- this feels more like the calm after a storm. Or the eye within it, maybe. Pidge wonders if this is a pattern forming -- an observable, repeated effect caused by Lance suddenly focusing on him. He thinks of-- liquid, bubbling. The volcano that houses Red, and the magma inside, bursting and subsiding, permanently roiling under a rocky shell. 

Except that volcanoes and fire are supposed to be what goes on in _Lance’s_ reckless, temperamental brain, not Pidge’s. Lance has somehow, apparently effortlessly, flipped their roles around; he’s looking for answers and Pidge is moody and angry and emotional, swinging up and down exhaustingly over the course of the last couple of days. It’s something he’s tried to tame and control in his adulthood -- he feels uncomfortably close to that angry, broken little boy who was caught up in a big war. 

That there _is_ a problem here hardly needs to be said. 

He’d hesitantly tried to talk to Allura about it-- thinking that she must be feeling the same way. She’d been the closest to Pidge’s own age, along with Hunk, when she’d stepped out of being a figurehead and carved out a place for herself with both hands. So surely, giving up Blue must have felt-- But Allura had talked about growth and change and how they were only adding and not subtracting and by the time she’d looked like she was winding to a close, smiling expectantly, Pidge had long since shut down. She was probably right, he’d told himself. 

Pidge hasn’t dared to ask Keith because-- well, because he doesn’t want Keith to think less of him, honestly. Allura hadn’t understood him, hadn’t comprehended what he was asking (and in a way he can hardly blame her, when it’s so confusing and illogical to try and articulate), but she hadn’t been _angry_ about it. She’d been soothing, reassuring, a voice of reason. Keith, though-- no matter how many times Pidge ran through the possibilities in his head, telling himself it was galactically unlikely-- 

\-- he can’t take the risk of Keith seeing him as weak and selfish. He just can’t. Pidge has spent more than a decade trying to live up to Keith's standards and beyond, to make him _proud_. 

Well. Allura seems to be at peace and Keith seemed to be dealing with it, for the two days he’d been an ex-Lion pilot, and that’s saying something because Keith is generally not good at _dealing with_ much of anything. Clearly, the outlier here is Pidge himself; QED. 

He’d tried to believe that it was just a matter of time and that he’d made the best decision. The only decision possible, under the circumstances. 

To keep himself busy, he’d thrown himself into the Castle defenses-- literally, once, to tear out a frayed and sparking mouse-chewed cable-- and he’d built mobile probes to reduce the need for Lion patrols. He’d never felt like the patrols were too much when he was doing them, but now that he’s on the outside looking in it’s suddenly clear that it’d be much more efficient to cut down the time the Lions spend on surveillance. He’s programmed fourteen new levels of achievements into the Voltron MMO, eleven of which nobody has been able to beat yet (including Vince). He’d written half an album’s worth of new music over the course of three days, and trashed it all on the fourth day after deciding it was rubbish. And there’s the haggarium project he’s started working on, which is barely in its planning stages, and promises to keep him occupied for-- 

\-- well, until he has to sleep, and then there’s nothing between him and his own thoughts anymore. 

He circles back. The problem with his thoughts are the thoughts themselves, a recursive error Pidge can’t seem to solve. Allura. Keith. Vince. 

Chip. He’d called Chip, because Vehicle Voltron is still in the nebulous hell of being officially decommissioned under Wade’s watch. So Chip would definitely understand what it felt like losing his place-- except Chip has apparently left the Advanced Recon Helicopter far behind him in favor of his work as a Garrison liaison on Balto, and he’d been cheerful and sympathetic and he hadn’t understood and he’d had _to go, Darrell, but listen, you’ll create a new role for yourself in your team, you just have to give it time and be patient and work to your strengths--_

He’d never even thought to ask Lance. But in the end, it had been Lance who grabbed Pidge by the arm and pulled him along and said _you can tell me. I feel the same way. I’m lost, too._

Pidge rolls over and looks up at him -- with a rush of affection for this bad-tempered, dog-loyal man who’s not nearly as good as he thinks he is at being a hard-hearted cynic -- and with a certain measuring curiosity. He thinks again of magma, churning under the surface of Arus’ meadows and forests, and wonders what the inverse would be-- a harsh surface of fire and obsidian, hiding something soft and fragile and unexpected underneath. 

Lance looks a little slack from the booze, but after a moment he shifts and glances down. Terrans are quick to pick up on being watched, Pidge seems to remember reading somewhere. But Lance just grins down at him. 

“Okay, bird?” he asks, reaching out to ruffle Pidge’s hair, and Pidge settles under it. 

“You know,” he says, “I’m getting a little too old for that sort of thing.” Lance lifts his hand cautiously, and Pidge reaches up and puts it firmly back where it was. “I didn’t say _stop_.” 

Lance laughs, and continues. “Changed your mind?” 

“No,” Pidge says, closing his eyes. “I’m still too old and jaded for this.” 

“Mmhmm.” Lance’s fingertips graze warm and rough just behind his ear, and Pidge squirms a little. “I can see you’re not enjoying it at all.” 

It’s . . . ticklish isn’t the right word. He isn’t sure what _is_ the right word for Lance, loosened by high-quality Elterian cognac, aimlessly and comfortably stroking through his hair. Hopefully he’ll keep doing it, so Pidge will be able to figure out the proper descriptor. There certainly must be one; it’s a very distinctive feeling, stimulant and sedative at the same time. 

“I’ve been wondering,” Lance says, “have you told Hunk about any of this?” 

That briefly shuffles Pidge out of his thoughts. “Hunk?” 

“Hunk. You know, six-eight, likes to tinker, serious pizza addiction?” 

“I’m sorry, this isn’t ringing any bells.” How would Lance describe _him?_ Small, techy. What else? What else is there? He can’t think of what anybody else would say. He can’t think of what _he_ would say-- 

“Sorry,” Lance says, his tone changing suddenly. “Sorry. None of my business. Never mind.” 

Well, that’s not like Lance at all. Pidge looks up at him questioningly, and Lance makes a vague gesture that conveys absolutely nothing. “You,” he says, “tensed up. Don’t worry about it. Not my place.” 

“Oh-- oh,” Pidge says, and pushes himself up enough to lean on his elbows. “No, I was thinking about something else. That’s not--” He huffs. “I mean, with everything you’ve already dragged out of me, why would talking about _Hunk_ be different?” 

“No reason, I guess,” Lance says distantly. 

Pidge takes off his glasses and rolls over with a sigh onto his side, letting his back rest against the side of Lance’s leg. “I don’t think he’d--” He catches himself, and reconsiders. Then he begins again, more slowly. “I don’t think he’d quite understand. Even if-- when he gives up Yellow, someday, I think he’s . . . he won’t be . . .” Pidge takes a breath and tries again. “He’s very grounded, he’s-- _shut up it wasn’t a pun_ \-- look, when Hunk does give up his Lion, he’ll still-- he’ll still know who he is afterward.” 

“Well,” Lance comments after a moment, sounding just a little sour, “lucky for him.” 

“Yes,” Pidge says absently. “But the other thing is-- well, this is why I think he’ll have an easier time with it, actually, but-- Hunk’s the only one who still treats me exactly the same way. It’s like nothing changed, as far as he’s concerned. Except the vehicle I’m in.” He smiles at nothing, a little fondly. “Nobody else seems to quite know what to do with me anymore. Even you do it, Lance-- you catch yourself when you’re talking about the Lions, things like that.” 

“I--” 

“I don’t want to spill all this to him,” Pidge says, “and have him start treating me differently too.” 

“I see.” Lance sighs, and smiles ruefully down at him. “Have another drink.” 

Pidge sits up to accept the glass Lance pours for him, swallows a bittersweet mouthful, and leans on Lance’s shoulder with a sigh. Lance reaches up and starts stroking his hair again, and Pidge feels his body relax even if his mind doesn’t. 

“Lance,” he says without really thinking about it, and then gropes for something to say when Lance looks at him. “You didn’t answer, before. What would you want to do, if you gave your Lion up?” 

Lance’s eyes narrow, and for a moment Pidge thinks he’s crossed a line, but then Lance sighs and absently tucks Pidge up against himself. “Keith and Allura both talked about staying around to keep training the cadets, but . . . I don’t know. Maybe.” He makes a face, and Pidge nods sympathetically. There’s an element of pride that he understands well, one that rebels against being given a token place, even as a different part of oneself scrabbles desperately to hang on. “I thought about going back to the Garrison and teaching.” 

Pidge makes an incredulous noise. “You hated teaching.” 

“I hated Wade. There’s a difference.” Lance shrugs philosophically. “It might be different with Hawkins in charge.” His eyes lower. “Or maybe I’d just go starhopping for a while.” 

“You wouldn’t want to go home?” Pidge asks. Balto is always in the back of his mind. Sometimes it feels like a safety net, and sometimes it feels like a weight. 

But Lance shrugs indifferently. “Home is wherever you bunk, bird.” His eyes take on a slightly faraway look. “I guess Arus is the closest thing to home, these days. The way you’re talking about it, I mean.” 

Pidge turns his glass around in his hands. “I’ve felt the same way,” he admits. “I don’t know if it’s from so much being rebuilt or just from being away for so long, but the last time I went to Balto, it all looked-- foreign, somehow.” He smiles a little at his reflection in his cup. “That’s funny, isn’t it? I miss Balto when I’m on Arus, and I miss Arus when I’m on Balto.” 

“How about Earth?” 

“Earth is terrible and no one should ever go there.” Lance gives him a pinch, and he squirms and doesn’t giggle, just a little. “Most of what I've seen on Earth is the Academy grounds, Lance. I guess I could form an opinion on that pizza place you guys used to sneak me into.” 

“Sure, hit me.” 

“B+.” 

“That’s pretty solid.” Lance regards him. “You’re the free man here. What do you want to do, Pidgey?” 

“There’s . . . so much I have to do.” Pidge shrugs. “The Castle defenses, the maintenance--” He runs a fingertip around the rim of his glass, producing a quivering note. “There aren’t enough hours in the day, you know?” 

“What do you _want_ to do?” Lance presses. 

“I--” Pidge begins. “Well, I’ve thought about going back to Balto. Not to stay, just to spend some time with my brother, but . . . he’s busy. I’m busy.” His fingers drum against the sides of his glass. “Really, I’m so busy I haven’t even had time to think about it--” 

“You can do anything you want.” Lance leans forward, aggressively filling Pidge’s space. “Don’t tell me what you _have_ to do. Tell me what you _want_ to do.” 

“I don’t know!” Pidge snaps. “All right? I don’t _know_ , Lance!” The last of the liquor in his glass sloshes wildly, splashing onto the bed as he waves a hand futilely. “I want-- I want to--” He lets out a shaky breath. “I want to go back. To how things were. To being Pidge.” 

Lance’s brow creases in confusion. “To being--” 

“I knew who I was. I knew what I was supposed to do. I knew where I was going.” There’s something burning its way up his spine, something hot and angry and hurting. “Lance, don’t you understand? Flying Green Lion is all I’ve ever done! Without her-- without-- being part of that-- without that-- I’m--” He pushes away, because suddenly the heat that’s pouring off Lance and the look on his face are too much, too close, too intense. 

“I don’t know what’s left,” he says. “I knew who Pidge Stoker was. I knew why he was here and what he was supposed to do. I . . . don’t know anymore.” He shouldn’t have drunk that last glass, some detached part of him thinks, before the first two even finished wearing off. It’s making him emotional, irrational, breaking his defenses. “I’ve never done anything else, Lance! Don’t you understand? That’s all I am! That’s all there is to me! I don’t know what I want to do because I don’t even know what’s left yet!” His breath hitches, and he hunches his shoulders up defensively. “I don’t even know if there _is_ anything left.” 

Lance pulls him back in with a movement that’s almost convulsive, holding him tight. “I understand,” he says. “When it’s all you’ve got--” 

And he _does_ know, Pidge thinks. There’s a weird, dizzying comfort to the thought that he isn’t alone, and he grasps at it the same way he clings onto the solid physical presence against him. 

“I feel like-- like I made up Pidge,” he says, uncertainly. “Pidge was . . . Pidge was whatever I needed to be. A pilot, an officer, a spy, a teacher--” He manages a wobbly smile. “Even a hero. And Balton, and Garrison, and Voltron Force, all together, and he never had to think about making all the pieces fit.” 

“Keys,” Lance says, and sighs. His shoulders sag and Pidge looks up questioningly, but Lance shakes his head. “No, I know what you’re talking about. I know exactly what you’re talking about. It’s like-- that game, the one you and Hunk play. Pulling blocks out of the tower to build it taller. And you pull out the, the-- keystone? No, that’s not it. But you pull out the one wrong piece, and it all comes crashing down.” 

Pidge huffs out something that’s almost a laugh. “That’s as good an analogy as any.” 

“It’s a great analogy,” Lance says, “shut up.” 

“Especially because I always lose.” 

“Pidgey,” Lance says, and then he hesitates, and says just a little uncertainly, “Darrell.” 

It’s been so long since he heard his own name that it almost sounds unfamiliar, like that’s the playful nickname and Pidge is the reality. Maybe, at this point, it is. But then what will be left when all the pieces of Pidge crack away? 

“Listen,” Lance says, urgent and earnest. “Listen, Pidge-- I don’t know what happens next. I don’t. I can’t tell you all that’s just, that it’s okay, but-- you, you’re not gone. You’re a hundred things, a thousand, I don’t know-- just-- this hurts and you’re pissed and you _should_ be pissed, but--” He seems to lose his own thread for a moment, floundering, and he looks at Pidge helplessly. “When you figure this out. And you _will_ figure this out. _When_ you do. You’ll still be there. This, this whole thing-- Green Lion’s not that one piece of you, where you lose her and you collapse and there’s nothing left. It’s just gonna be a . . . a scar. Or--” A bolt of inspiration seems to strike him. “Or like your eyes.” 

“My eyes,” Pidge says, because that’s the easiest piece of this to deal with right now. 

“Where you had to get smashed up a little to get those eyes,” Lance says, although he looks like he’s going out of focus again. “You put your whole life into this, and some twerpy little pissant grabbed it away and everybody just let that happen. Be mad, bird. But listen-- you’re the most, the most _alive_ person I’ve ever met. _Nothing_ about you is empty.” 

Pidge leans into his neck. “Just broken.” 

“Broken’s not _gone_ ,” Lance says firmly. 

After a few moments, Pidge makes a plaintive noise. “But I still don’t know what I’m supposed to _do_ now.” 

“Well-- you could--” Lance doesn’t seem to have an answer for that, but Pidge will give him credit for a valiant attempt. “You could do a lot of things . . .” 

He sighs and sprawls back, taking Pidge with him, to the accompaniment of a surprised squeak. “I don’t know what the answer is,” he says, eventually. “If I did I wouldn’t be fucked up over it myself. Maybe we have to do things the hard way and find it for ourselves.” 

It’s not a very good reply. Rationally, Pidge can discern that. It doesn’t tell him anything about the answer to all his questions. It holds nothing concrete, shows nothing objective. 

But it’s making him feel, for the first time in weeks, like he’s not alone in the dark. 

* * *

There are things he should be doing. He can use the time while Lance is sleeping to work. He can dig into Manset’s financial records, which promise to be intriguing. He could go find Manset himself. He could scan the grounds for recorders that don’t bear the resort’s security signature. 

There are lots of things he _could_ do. 

_What do you_ want _to do?_ echoes in his head. 

After a moment, Pidge pushes himself a little closer, arranges himself against Lance’s side, and closes his eyes. 

* * *

Well. He ends up digging into Manset’s records anyway, because it’s a good four hours after Pidge wakes up from his doze that Lance begins his process of waking up -- which, in a non-emergency, is a ten-minute progression through the five stages of grief. He eventually props himself up on his elbows and blearily says, “Bird?” 

“Hi,” Pidge says, sliding the display aside, and then isn’t quite sure how to proceed. It feels like they’ve shot well past the point of pretending nothing out of the ordinary has passed between them, but the territory beyond that is uncharted. 

Lance rubs his eyes. “Did I get a little drunk and kind of unhelpful last night?” 

Pidge climbs up onto the bed. “I don’t know. Did I get a little drunk and kind of pathetic?” 

“Maybe we canceled each other out into a single well-adjusted adult.” Lance rolls back into the pillows. 

Pidge raises his eyebrows. “Well, I hope he takes after me.” 

“Oh, eat me.” Pidge grins, and Lance turns to regard him with one half-opened eye. “Did you sleep?” 

“I did, for a couple of hours,” Pidge says, and doesn’t add that it was nestled snugly against Lance’s warm back. He raises his hands defensively when Lance somehow manages to glare. “No, I _promise_ , it was all I needed after sleeping so long the night before.” 

“Hmmph.” Lance wriggles down against the mattress and sighs. 

Pidge blinks. “Are you-- going back to sleep?” 

“Mmhmm.” 

“Weren’t you going to get up and go find Manset first thing?” 

“Mmhm.” 

“Because it’s ten in the morning and you passed ‘first thing’ four hours ago.” 

“Mm.” 

Pidge slides carefully off the bed, on the opposite side from where his displays are set up, gets as good a grip as he can, and rips the blanket and top sheet off the bed. Lance jerks, then bolts upright with a growl. “What the _fuck_ , bird?” 

“Get up, you slob,” Pidge says briskly, and tosses the messy bundle of bedclothes aside, where Lance can’t attempt to wrap up in them. “I’m going to go take a shower, and then we can go find Manset and figure out what we’re actually supposed to be doing here.” 

“You suck harder than anybody has ever sucked before,” Lance grouses, but he sits up. 

Pidge rolls his eyes and goes to shower. “Superlative at last.” 

* * *

He doesn’t think he took _that_ long, but when he comes back out into the room, the table is laden with covered dishes. “Did you order room service?” he asks, puzzled. “I thought you wanted to get going.” 

Lance looks up from his book. “Me? No, I thought you ordered it before I woke up.” 

They look at each other, then at the table. Pidge is already darting around the bed to get to his Voltcom as Lance gets up, expanding his own Voltcom to full-size to scan the table. Pidge jams the cuff on his arm and it lights up at once, the weight of it comforting and familiar on his forearm. 

_Stupid_ , he thinks, _stupid, you should have been running auto-scans every hour_. But the scanner on his Voltcom-- of his own design, and quite a bit more sophisticated than Garrison-issue tech, if he says so himself-- finds nothing except the resort security, which he’d disabled as a matter of course during their first hour in the room. 

“Bugs?” Lance says in a preoccupied tone. 

Pidge shakes his head. “No,” he says, “none. I’m running it again just to be sure, but-- if there’s anything here, it’s not something I can find.” 

“Then there’s nothing here.” Lance is lifting dish covers, so the table must have passed a weapons check. The plates are all empty, except for one-- on which a flat, black messenger chip sits. Lance picks it up by the edges, his lip curling. “What an idiot. I didn’t even think. I should’ve noticed something was off.” 

“You couldn’t have known they were empty without looking,” Pidge says, taking the chip. “These dishes are sealed, you’re not even supposed to be able to smell anything until you open them.” 

Lance rolls his eyes. “Yeah, well, when the room service guy didn’t hang around looking for a _tip_ I should’ve gotten wise. Sorry, bird. Can you get anything from that?” 

“No, it’s cracked,” Pidge says. “Anonymous. You find them a lot in places like this, where people are sending messages that they might not want traced-- I’m sure I could go out onto the strip and buy ten of them, from ten different people in ten different alleys.” He perches cross-legged on the bed, lifting his main display to eye-level. “Could you recognize the person who delivered it if you saw him?” 

“If I saw him,” Lance says. “But somehow I don’t think he’ll show up again. What’s the message?” 

“It’s . . . encrypted, but very simply,” Pidge says, keying through it. “Somebody knew we’d be able to decode it. Somebody knows we’re here.” 

He can hear Lance start pacing back and forth as the key slowly flickers through the gibberish on the screen, transforming it into recognizable lines of code-- standard code. There’s no brilliant technological mastermind behind this, only somebody who used ordinary civilian equipment to record a message and then ran it through a scrambler. That might be a comforting thought, he supposes, but the flipside of it is that there’ll be no tracing it. 

He wonders if Vince would be able to do it, then shuts his eyes tight trying to ward off that thought, because he _needs_ to be functional right now. 

“I can’t believe I was so stupid,” Lance growls. 

“It’s my fault you were distracted,” Pidge says a little bleakly. 

Lance turns, crosses back to the bed in two quick steps, and leans forward, pushing his way into Pidge’s space again. “Do _not_ start that shit,” he warns, “is that clear? And do not make me tell you twice.” 

Pidge blinks, then bristles. “Don’t you talk to _me_ like I’m some unruly cadet,” he snaps in turn. Then he takes a deep breath. “I. I won’t. This is--” 

“This is why we’re here,” Lance says. “This is why I needed you here. _You_ , Pidge.” After a moment, he tries for a smile. “So let’s quit trying to fight about whose fault it is, and get to the bottom of this instead, okay?” 

Pidge smiles back, just a little. “Okay.” He looks back at the screen. “I won’t be able to track anything through this, though. We’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.” 

Lance grins an unpleasant, wolfish grin. “I _like_ the old-fashioned way.” 

“ _Voltron Force_ ,” says a garbled, mechanized voice from the display’s audio output. “ _We have your friend._ ” 

Lance stares intently at the screen. “Can you clean that up?” 

Pidge shakes his head. “It’s a synthesized voice.” 

“How can you tell?” 

“I’ve used them for-- it’d take too long to explain.” 

“ _Negotiations will take place tonight. 2250. Coordinates to follow. Arrive unarmed. We are watching. Do not attempt to use the Voltron Lions or contact the other pilots, or the Mandibian’s life will be forfeit and we will seize the resort._ ” 

“Lance--” Pidge begins as a series of numbers flashes on the screen. 

“Right,” Lance says. “Run those coordinates, bird.” 

“If they’re holding the whole resort hostage--” 

“They’d be doing it already. They want us, separated. Three pilots, no Voltron. That’s my guess.” Lance looks down at him. “This sounds like a Maahox plan, but--” 

“But Maahox is dead,” Pidge says, and taps his fingers in agitated thought. “And Maahox knew about the three cadets. Even if somebody knocks out you and me, that won’t stop Voltron like it would have before. It has to be someone who doesn’t know about them, or who at least doesn’t know they’re piloting now.” 

“And that means somebody smalltime,” Lance says. “There’s a lot of people out there who’d like to see Voltron down for good. Not everything is going to be some big nemesis. Is there anything else on this message?” 

“No,” Pidge says, “just the coordinates.” 

“Fine. We’ve got eleven hours. I’ve got a plan.” Pidge looks up in surprise, and Lance puts a hand on his shoulder and smiles seraphically down at him. It’s . . . worrying. 

“Lance,” he says, warily. 

“Bird,” Lance says, “I’m about to make good use of your talents.”


	9. Let's walk along the wire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some violence in this one.  
> There are also two (2) Andrew Francis/My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic jokes in it. I'm not sure which of these facts requires more warning.

Alone in the suite, Pidge types industriously away at one of his displays, glancing from time to time at one of the other screens that surround him. Anyone watching would see him stretch his arms over his head from time to time, and once he gets up and goes into the bathroom, but the interruptions are always brief. Blocks of encoded data flicker across the screens, reflecting on the tinted lenses of his glasses. 

* * *

Elsewhere, amidst the piping and grates that line the unglamorous backside of the resort, the slitted cover over one of the ventilation shafts rattles just a little, as if the bolts holding it in place are slightly loose. 

* * *

Pidge is going to have no room to complain, Lance reflects as he zigzags through the casino lobby. He’d wanted to be kept busy, right? And once again, Manset’s Pleasuredome provides whatever its guests want. 

Running parallel to that line of thought is a sharp bolt of anxiety, because for all the precautions they’ve taken-- and convenient as it was, he _is_ going to have to investigate why Pidge has a hard-light projection of himself already programmed and ready to go-- it’s Pidge who’s doing the dangerous work. Or the dangerous prep work, at least. Like a canary in a mineshaft. Or a pigeon in a ventilation shaft. 

Hah. 

Since Keith isn’t here to ever ever find out about it, Lance briefly indulges himself in the thought that he’d feel a lot better if Keith were here to give the orders and take the responsibility. 

Maybe this is how Keith feels _all the time_. It’s almost enough to make Lance respect him and the hard decisions he makes. 

Almost. 

It’s not, he wants to stress (if only to himself), that he’s incapable of giving orders or planning an operation like this. He’s a brilliant, top-tier commanding officer who isn’t given to self-doubt, as least as far as his own capabilities and decisions go. And this is hardly the most dangerous minefield, metaphorical or literal, that he’s navigated through. This doesn’t even crack the top ten. 

“Excuse me,” he says, leaning over the bar with a conspiratorial grin at the bartender, who-- in accordance with narrative convention-- is wiping out a glass. “Point me toward the table games, huh? I’m ready to play the absolute shit out of some pai gow.” 

The bartender gives him a perky smile that actually scans as genuine. Lance hopes Manset pays her well. “Right through that door, sir, and then a left.” She tilts her head a little. “Aren’t you-- I feel like I’ve seen you somewhere before. Were you on a telecast, or--?” 

“You know, it’s weird,” Lance says, “I get that all the time. I do voiceovers, I think that’s why.” 

Her face brightens. “ _Friendly Little Cavallians!_ That’s what I know you from! My son loves that show so much!” 

Lance beams at her. “That’s so great to hear, you know?” he tells her, and signs a bar napkin with an illegible squiggle for her to take home before he heads off in the direction she’d pointed. 

He makes sure he’s out of the bartender’s line of vision before he completely ignores the table games in favor of sidling into a stairwell. The goal is to be visible to whoever’s watching them, because somebody in this resort is watching them. In fact, the goal is for Lance to be flagrantly visible while ostentatiously trying not to be visible, drawing attention to everywhere Pidge is _not_ \-- which is ostensibly, just in case anyone _does_ go looking, back in the room being a busy little bird. 

Lance puts a hand in his pocket and touches the tiny sensor there. Pidge is the sticking point here. Pidge is what’s making him antsy. If something goes wrong-- 

If anything happens to Pidge-- 

Pidge, who is highly trained and adept at this exact thing, he reminds himself. Pidge, for whom military sabotage was literal child’s play. Pidge, who has demonstrated on multiple occasions that he can defend himself against overwhelming odds at least as well as Lance can, if not better. 

Pidge, who has always been and still is absolutely shit at remembering to check in, the brat. 

If anything happens to Pidge, Manset’s slimy buddies are going to _wish_ the Lions were the worst thing that had come for them. 

Lance takes a deep breath. Okay. This isn’t the time for him to be bogged down in distractions. Closing his eyes, he slowly exhales the way his grandfather taught him to. And the counselor back at the Academy. And Lisa, back on the _Explorer_. And Allura, who probably should have known better by the time she tried it. It’s funny how many people over the years have tried to teach him breathing exercises that have never, not once, worked to dispel the thunderclouds in his head; but he feels obligated to try, just the same. They all seem so earnest and well-meaning about it, he keeps finding himself promising to do it. 

He heads down the stairs, with the intention of seeing how close he can get to the basement before some staff member catches him. Then he’ll start making his way toward the kitchens, asking pointed questions about the room service waiters. That should draw the attention of whoever’s-- 

The sensor vibrates in his pocket and Lance’s hand shoots into his pocket without conscious thought. One, two, three times it buzzes-- all clear, and tension that Lance hadn’t even realized was gripping his shoulders eases its clutch. Then there’s the quick click-chirp signature that’s become Pidge’s unofficial “whoops, sorry” over the years, because he’s _that bad_ at remembering to check in on time. 

Only an estimated three more hours of this to go, then. 

Fan _tas_ tic. 

* * *

Someone is following him. 

They’ve been at a distance for about ten minutes now, doggedly following from room to room, nothing but an indistinct shock of red hair at the distance Lance has carefully kept. Whoever it is, though, it looks like a kid, and there’s a certain attempt at subtlety that’s actively failing. 

Experimentally, Lance abruptly turns out of the main hall and into a bar, low-lit and filled with artificial haze. ( _Who_ , he wonders irrelevantly, _would come to the most expensive resort in the Denubian Quadrant to go to a make-believe dive bar?_ and then answers himself _Okay, I would, but who’d do it seriously?_ ) 

Whoever this kid is that’s following him, though . . . Lance runs down the possibilities in his head. This can’t be the real tail, he’s too obvious. Is he a decoy, someone to catch Lance’s attention and draw it away from whoever’s really tracing him? Or is this carefully calculated to throw him off-guard and-- He shakes his head. _I know that you know that I know that you know_ , down that road madness lies. Fingering the sensor in his pocket, he watches the red hair approach closer, resolving itself into a skinny kid who looks like he hasn’t grown into his front teeth yet. Much to his surprise, the kid somehow doesn’t set off the door buzzer, despite looking like puberty has given him a wide berth so far. 

The bartender, a middle-aged Torisian, nods at him, horns gleaming dully in the low light. “What’ll it be, mister?” 

“You have Terran liquor?” Lance asks absently, intensely aware of somebody skinny scrambling onto the barstool next to him. 

“All Alliance planets.” 

“Bourbon.” The bartender nods and doesn’t bat an eye at Buckteeth, not even his second eyelid. So that’s no help. He probably can’t tell when a human is clearly underaged. 

Unless he’s in on it-- 

Once again, Lance consciously stops himself from going down the rabbit-hole. There’s a fine line between the paranoia that keeps them alive, and the paranoia that gets them so jittery they start making stupid mistakes. 

Then the kid gives him a sly look and says, “I know who you are,” and Lance reconsiders. 

“Oh yeah?” he asks, keeping his fingers from twitching into his jacket, but hyperaware of the weight against his ribs. “And who am I?” 

(“Are you really going to walk around with concealed weapons in the middle of the resort?” Pidge had asked in exasperation as he watched Lance adjust the shoulder holster. 

“Why stop now?” he’d responded.) 

“You’re--” 

“And what’ll you have?” the bartender rumbles, coming back to set a glass in front of Lance. 

The kid blinks up at him. “Oh, I ca-- I don’t drink.” 

That draws an ominous stare. “Two drink minimum.” 

Buckteeth’s eyes dart back and forth, then land on Lance’s glass. “I’ll have what he’s having,” he blurts out, desperate. 

This is . . . weird. There’s no warning bell ringing in the back of Lance’s head, no instinct to do much of anything except turn this kid in at lost and found. Still, though. _I know who you are._ His gut isn’t often wrong, but now’s not the time to take chances. 

Buckteeth leans forward with a conspiratorial air, glancing ostentatiously around. Lance can’t help but think that _nobody’s_ this good an actor. If _Lance_ was this good an actor, he would have been able to convince Keith that flight drills at dawn really were taking a toll on everyone’s mental health and that none of them should be getting up before noon. 

But then the kid hisses, “You’re the Red Lion pilot,” and sits back looking smug. 

_Don’t react,_ Lance thinks, _not yet, not with this many people around._ He lifts his glass, tilting it and watching the lights reflect in the surface. “You got the wrong guy, kid.” 

“Oh, I don’t think so,” the kid says, preening. “I’ve been watching you since you went through the fountain hall. You might have other people fooled, but not _me._ ” 

Lance would give a lot for the reassuring weight of his Voltcom right now. Has he really fallen so low that he got nailed by this scrubby little washboard of a-- 

“I’m telling you,” he says, “you’ve mistaken me for somebody else.” 

“Let’s dispense with the pleasantries,” Buckteeth says, and looks pleased with himself for that line. “I want to buy your jacket.” 

What. 

“What.” 

“Money’s no object. I have my dad’s credit chip.” This cannot be real. The last eight hours have been some kind of weird, Voyage-drunk-induced dream. Nothing else makes sense. “I want it for my collection.” 

“Your collection,” Lance says. He’d ordered the drink as a show, but it’s starting to look awfully tempting. 

“I have _several_ original pieces, but getting hold of anything of _yours_ is almost impossible. The flight jacket, though? That’d be a coup, if I say so myself. All the big collectors are dying to get their hands on it. It’s, like . . . iconic.” Bucky actually reaches out to touch it, but apparently he still has some speck of self-preservation rattling around in his head, because he catches Lance’s eye and drops his hand back to the bar. Then he shakes his head and gives Lance a stare that’s . . . not as intense as he probably thinks it is. “Anyway. Name your price. Like I said, money’s no object.” 

“I don’t deserve this right now,” Lance murmurs, putting a hand over his eyes. 

“It _is_ a very generous offer,” Bucky says complacently, and Lance gazes straight ahead for a moment, counts to ten, and lets out a deep breath. 

The sensor in his pocket vibrates one-two-three, halting him long enough to collect himself before he does something that will definitely not be low-profile. (God, Pidge will laugh his ass off about this.) 

He gestures for the bartender. “Hey,” he says, “this kid’s underage. Sounds like he stole an ID.” 

Bucky squeaks, and the bartender turns to him. “Let’s see your passcard.” 

“It’s--” Bucky looks around nervously, looking like a hunted rabbit. “It’s my dad’s!” he blusters, “and he’s going to--” 

The bartender nods at Lance without so much as another flicker. “Sorry for the inconvenience, mister. I’ll take care of it. Barun!” 

“You can’t get rid of me!” Bucky squawks as the bouncer looms, huge and leonine. “I have a _pass!_ ” 

“Underage,” the bartender grunts, and Barun nods, taking Bucky by the arm. 

“Daniel was right,” Bucky hisses as the bouncer pulls him off the stool, “you _are_ a jerk!” 

What. 

“What.” 

Lance shakes his head, trying to clear it. He’s . . . well, he’s going to have a lot of loose threads to start pulling when he gets back to the Castle, that’s for sure. Bucky draws some curious attention on his way out, with the noise he’s making, but that’s just fine, really. If people are watching him get dragged out, that means they’re not watching Lance. 

“Sorry for the trouble, mister,” the bartender says, jarring him back to the present. “No charge for the drink.” 

“Thanks, buddy,” Lance says, and presses his chip into the indent in the counter to leave a respectable tip. Manset almost certainly doesn’t pay these people enough to deal with weird little squeakers like Bucky. A fifty-credit tip-- billed back to Manset’s account, of course-- has to count as smoothing out the karma, just a little bit. 

The bartender hesitates as Lance stands. “You aren’t . . . actually part of the Voltron Force, are you?” he asks. 

“Hell no,” Lance says, standing up. “Kid’s nuts.” 

The bartender nods his shaggy head in what looks like relief. 

* * *

Albsir waits until the rangy human has left and is out of his line of sight before reaching beneath the bar for the alert. “He’s headed back toward the main stairwell,” he rumbles. 

Then he carefully pours the untouched liquor into the drain and submerges the glass in the sanitizing wash. 

Too bad the human didn’t drink it. 

* * *

One-two-three, the sensor buzzes for the last time-- click-chirp, click-chirp. Finally. Wandering the resort had gotten old a lot faster than Lance expected it to, and coming back to the room hadn’t been much better, with Pidge’s weird little ghost hunched in the corner. Lance keeps looking up at it when it moves. It makes him kind of nervous. 

He fiddles with the disruptor until it lights up green, fizzling any data feeds from their room. This has never been the part of these missions that he’s good at, mostly because he’s easily the most technologically inept member of the Voltron Force. Even Allura is better at working out devices and gadgets than he is, and she -- as she likes to remind him -- grew up in a bombed-out castle lit by torches. 

That said, Pidge’s explanation really had been kind of insultingly long and detailed. He’s not _stupid_ , after all, he’s perfectly capable of hitting a switch on a disruptor and shutting off a projection-- shutting off a-- 

Okay, it’s not shutting off and Holo Pidge is even creepier up close. Lance squints at the display and pushes a couple of tabs hopefully, but all that does is make the projection fuzz a little at the edges. _Glitch Pidge_ , he thinks, _Glidge_ , and maybe this is why he can never figure out how to work this stuff, because his brain is too busy supplying him with brilliant tidbits like _that_ to retain keycodes. 

The sensor buzzes insistently in his pocket and haha, okay, Pidge is never going to let him live this down, but maybe he can-- if he just-- maybe this? no-- _now it’s beeping, why is it beeping_ \-- okay, there’s a _real_ easy way to shut it off, he decides, and yanks the powerpack out of the wall. 

And the projection glitches, flickers, and vanishes. As do the numerous displays with their running data. 

Oops. 

Oh well. He sends an answering pulse over the sensor. 

There’s a rattling noise above him, and in a moment the vent cover clatters to the floor and Pidge peers into the room, looking filthy and tired and pleased with himself. “That went pretty well, I have to say,” he informs Lance, accepting a hand down. “Everything’s set for tonight. Their vents are disgusting. I think the building might be abandoned.” He glances around, takes in the powerpack yanked out of the outlet, then looks up at Lance with a profoundly disappointed expression. “Really?” 

“It didn’t work,” Lance says defensively. 

“Yes it _does_ work, I _showed_ you--” 

“It didn’t work! What do you want from me?” 

“Look at this totally working thing, Lance.” 

Lance rolls his eyes. “What else did you find out?” 

Pidge looks mischievous. “I found out _you_ can’t turn a simple projection off-- ow!” he yips as Lance tugs his ears. Swatting Lance’s hands away, he steps back to perch on the bed. “I saw a couple of Drule in there, but it was a pretty mixed group from what I could tell. It seems to be a really rickety operation, though. There was a lot of dodgy-looking equipment and I saw a couple of speeders outside, but nothing like the limo or the weaponry from the last time we were here.” 

Lance hums thoughtfully. “So it might not even be related to that last group. Dread? Boss Dread? Something like that.” 

“Well, it didn’t look like _organized_ crime, if you take my meaning. I heard a couple of them squabbling.” Pidge cleans a smudge off his glasses, apparently oblivious to the smudges all over his face (and shoulders, and elbows and knees). “To be completely honest, I’m surprised they managed to grab Manset. It really looks like a two-bit insurance operation, not a syndicate.” 

“Hmm.” 

Pidge cocks his head. “What are you thinking?” 

“I’m thinking this sounds like a setup. Manset’s not _new_ at this, he has to have some kind of security or contingency plans or something. If this group is as ragged as you say, why was he calling us to come take care of it?” Lance leans on the bar, drumming his fingers on it. “This doesn’t add up. He didn’t get here by not knowing how to take care of people like that.” 

Pidge’s face scrunches up thoughtfully. “That makes sense, but-- and understand this is just a counterpoint-- you also suspect everything of being a setup.” 

“Not everything.” 

“You suspect the cadets are trying to set you up a minimum of three times a week.” 

“And I haven’t been wrong yet. Remember that thing with the dragons?” 

“Well, the dragons weren’t their actual plan. They’re _children_ , Lance.” 

Lance grins at that. “Yeah, you were a much more challenging opponent when _you_ were sixteen.” 

Pidge bows as gracefully as anyone sitting cross-legged on a fluffy bed can bow. “I had only the best teachers.” Then he straightens up. “But really-- I don’t know, it could all be some kind of setup, but that seems a little farfetched, doesn’t it? I mean, are you suggesting Manset would get himself kidnapped? What for?” 

“Oh, the answer is money every time with Our Dear Friend Manset. I just don’t know if he’d really get this sloppy, or if he sees a way to-- I don’t know, scam something out of this. Some kind of insurance fraud, or frame one of the other local resort owners to get rid of them. Something.” 

Pidge gazes at him, leaning his chin on his hand. “What kind of mind thinks of that sort of thing, Lance?” he asks solemnly. 

“Birdy, he’s just goddamn lucky I went into the defending-the-universe game, otherwise he’d be mopping the floors in _my_ casino. Go wash up and we’ll get some food, then we’ll work out the coords.” 

“I’m starving,” Pidge says agreeably, hopping off the bed. “Not room service again, right?” 

“Obviously.” A thought catches Lance. “And maybe put your sweatshirt hood up. I think we might have been spotted.” 

“What? Lance, why didn’t you say anything? Were you followed or--” 

“I was, but not the way you’re thinking of. Get moving, I’ll explain everything on the way down.” 

* * *

Pidge is laughing his ass off. 

“I swear to God,” Lance says. 

“He wanted to buy your _jacket?_ ” Pidge wheezes. “Does he _know?_ Does he know what you _do_ to people who touch it?” 

“I have to protect my iconic, highly collectible look.” Pidge’s shoulders shake with helpless giggles, and Lance can’t help but grin, watching. Without tinted lenses or gel, with bright mischief on his face, he looks like a different person from the pensive, tired-eyed waif he’d been just a couple of days ago. 

(The thought crystallizes -- _I would do_ anything _if it meant he’d keep smiling like that_ \-- and shatters against reality instantly.) 

“I can’t believe I missed it,” Pidge gasps. “I can’t believe I missed _seeing your face_ when somebody tried to--” He wipes his eyes. “And he knows Daniel?” 

“Yeah,” Lance says, indignant as the recollection occurs to him, “and apparently Daniel is going around telling his weird little buddies that I’m a jerk?” 

Pidge grins. “If it walks like a jerk and talks like a jerk and hands out disproportionate work detail like a jerk--” 

“Oh, eat a dick, bird. Besides, the Castle floors look amazing now.” 

“I want to meet him! Lance, if you see him again you _have_ to tell me.” 

“No! No, you’re too keyed up about this and it’s weird. You don’t get to meet him. Besides, he’ll probably try to steal a lock of your hair or something.” 

“Lance.” Pidge squirms excitedly. “Lance. Listen. Bring him back to the Castle.” 

Lance inhales deeply. “Bird.” 

“It’ll make Keith _so_ miserable.” 

“That’s--” He pauses, leans back, and gives Pidge a measuring stare. “You’re good, I’ll give you that much.” 

Pidge gives him a fond, cheerful smile. His freckles dot his face like stars. “By the way-- you know I was joking, right? You’re not _really_ a jerk.” 

“Nice try.” 

“Aw, I thought for sure that’d work.” 

* * *

“One more time,” Pidge says behind him, pulling the strap taut. 

“Multiple bays,” Lance says, “you’re telling me about 300 standard feet each. They’ve hacked through the walls so there’s ingress there but--” He wheezes. “Too tight, bird!” 

“It’s exactly as tight as it needs to be. I _know_ how to do this. _This_ is too tight--” 

“Christ almighty-- okay!” Lance exhales as Pidge loosens the body armor again. “I forgot what a pain regular body armor is.” 

“Feel free to thank your local Voltcom inventors at any time.” Pidge hesitates then, with his hands on either side of Lance’s back. 

Lance twists around to look at him. “What?” 

Pidge starts. “Nothing!” 

Lance stands up, breathes deeply to test the fit, and looks down at Pidge. “Sit.” 

They haven’t done this for a long time. Maybe Wade had a point somewhere in that cracked, fizzling brain of his, Lance thinks; maybe they have gotten too reliant on techno-wizardry, on hard-light armor and augmented physical capabilities. On the other hand, though, why have a bag of tricks and not use it? 

“Breathe in,” he says, and Pidge’s ribs expand under his hands, feeling as breakable as a sparrow’s nervous flutter, for all that knowledge and experience tell him otherwise. Thread, pull-- “Breathe out,” and fasten. “It’s going to be fine,” he adds. 

Pidge glances questioningly up at him. 

“All of this,” Lance clarifies. “This is junior shit. We’ll take care of it. Okay?” He ruffles Pidge’s hair. 

Pidge cracks a smile at that. “And then your vacation finally starts.” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, I just-- I hate this part. The waiting, I mean. In between planning and actually being out there. I always start . . . thinking about everything that could go wrong.” 

It’s on the tip of Lance’s tongue to say _nothing will go wrong_ , but . . . He sits down instead, and pulls Pidge’s head against his shoulder. Pidge lets out a surprised little chirp. “I’m the same way. Have you tried, like--” the irony of this is just sickening, he reflects, “--deep breathing exercises or anything?” 

Pidge makes a fussy noise at that. “Chip swears by that stuff, and Keith tried to teach me some kind of mindfulness thing, but it never works.” 

Lance can’t help laughing. “You too? I’ve been lying to Allura for years, telling her it helps. I didn’t know Keith was into it, though.” 

Pidge giggles just a little at that. “Haven’t you noticed all the meditation he’s been doing since he got back?” 

“Is _that_ what he’s up to? I thought he just wanted to get away from the cadets.” 

Pidge laughs again, and looks up at Lance. “Maybe he's multitasking. Either way, I’m glad I’m not the only one. I always feel so bad telling people it doesn’t work.” 

“You’re not.” Lance smiles down at him. “But I know what’ll make you feel better.” 

“Don’t say alcohol.” 

“No, that’s what makes _me_ feel better. _You_ just need to keep busy till zero hour. Come on, goof up a blueprint for me so I can picture this better. It’s three rows of twelve and each room is 300 standard feet square--” 

* * *

Lance is pretty sure Pidge was right, and that this place was abandoned until pretty recently in this little cadre’s collective career. It looks like a series of storage units, actually. There’s not much to any of the rooms, for lack of a better word, except light fixtures and walls. 

Barun the Bouncer who Bounced Bucky from the Bar pats them down impassively, while a much smaller, slighter personage keeps a watchful eye on them, and keeps her finger nervously tapping on the trigger guard of her blaster. It looks like old Garrison-issue, from back before Wade redesigned them. That’s interesting. 

He’s so disappointed in the big leonine bouncer, though. He leans over. “Pleasuredome must not pay you too well, huh?” 

Barun grunts and gives him an unamused stare. “No talking,” the guard barks. Her stripes betray her, though, flushed darker blue with nerves. 

“Oh, I’m just asking,” Lance says, conversationally. “Me and Barun here, we go way back.” 

“Lance,” Pidge says, “I already have a headache, could you not?” 

“Nobody talks to each other anymore.” 

“Where are their gauntlets?” the guard demands. 

Barun shrugs. “No gauntlets. I checked.” 

“We were told to arrive unarmed,” Pidge says, and without missing a beat, he adds, “Lance, whatever you’re thinking of saying, don’t.” 

“Hmph.” 

The guard’s nasal slits flare and she bites her lip nervously, but after a moment she nods. “All right. This way. Barun, stay here and watch the doors. Make sure they don’t have anybody else coming to back them up.” 

The doorway they go through is just a hole hacked into the wall between the sub-chambers. There are two more guards in here-- bigger and heavier than the one nudging her blaster against Lance’s back. One has something that looks like a huge, metal club studded with nasty-looking spikes along its edges; the other has a full-sized F9 energy blaster. 

Between them sits a Drule-- not the crime boss that Lance remembers from the last time he was here, he’s pretty sure. Most likely it’s a straggler from Dread’s gang, he thinks, a thug who fancies himself a mastermind. Typical Drule bullshit. Manset is bound and dumped unceremoniously in the corner; he looks as impassive as always. Lance can hear a few more figures moving in behind them, closing ranks. 

“So here are the heroes,” the Drule says, leaning back and regarding them, “ready to rescue their pet smuggler. You don’t look so impressive without your Lions and your shining armor, do you?” 

“It’s matte, actually,” Pidge says absently. 

“It’s not a factor in our current negotiations, is what it is,” the Drule leader says. 

“What it _isn’t_ ,” Lance pipes up helpfully. 

“Commander, Sergeant,” Manset says from his corner, “please. This is no time for jokes.” 

“He’s got that right,” the Drule agrees. “But it seems to me this is no time for negotiations, either. I have Voltron’s _hands tied_ , right in front of me-- two of its pilots right here, unarmed.” He leers. “It seems to me like you won’t be making the calls this time.” 

Pidge looks over at Lance, his eyebrows raised. “A double cross, Lance!” 

“ _Who_ could have predicted this?” Lance replies. They both look back at the Drule, who looks a little nonplussed at their reactions. That’s fair. It happens a lot. 

“So are you going to kill us,” Lance asks him, “or are you going to use Pidge here as a bargaining chip to get the rest of the team to show up here unarmed and helpless, too? Did you think of that one?” 

“I--” 

“Why just me?” 

“I think Allura might actually want me dead after the baths incident, to be honest.” 

“Both of you, _shut up!_ ” the Drule thunders at them. He turns to his guards. “Knock them out and tie them up with the bug!” 

Pidge looks at Lance. “Are you done playing with them?” 

“Go ahead, do your thing.” 

Pidge’s jaw works for just a moment, and then Lance can see him bite down before spitting a tiny white pellet out onto the floor. 

Balton smokescreens are no joke, that’s for sure. The room fills with opaque white smoke instantaneously, hiding everything and everyone from view. Lance resists the instinctive urge to panic like everybody else and stands up, touching the miniscule earpiece hidden behind the cartilage. The visor connects, and suddenly he can see through the smoke as if it weren’t there-- he can see the gang members blundering and stumbling, trying to find walls to orient themselves against. His entire field of vision is tinted red. _Nice touch, Pidge,_ he thinks. 

There’s a clatter as Pidge sends two of his throwing stars at the ventilation duct with an effortless flick of his wrist, and follows their trajectory to catch the plate as it falls from the ceiling. He flips it over, and pries the two collapsed Voltcoms off the back where he’d attached them hours ago. Lance catches his own when Pidge throws it through the smoke, expands it and jams it back on his forearm. His vision glitches as the Voltcom reads and integrates the visor, then comes back clearer than ever. 

Pidge is already springing off, and it feels just like old times. Old times with new gear, anyway. Lance feels the familiar flames come to life around his fists-- and then they harden, solidify and converge. The construct isn’t heavy around his hands, but he can feel the solid rings around his fingers, and glances down at the vicious-looking little knuckleduster, shaped like a stylized paw. As he flexes his hand, long, savage claws extend, then obediently retract into nothingness. 

Well, _this_ is going to be a fun new toy. 

He tests them out on the boss, who lets out a yelp as Lance looms up at him out of the smoke, but then goes down with a whimper. This, Lance decides, out of the magnanimity of his heart, isn’t the time to test the claws. Because this so-called criminal organization barely deserves the name. Pidge has already taken down two of them, and if Lance doesn’t hurry he won’t be able to even the score. 

It’s not that he can’t appreciate the grace and dexterity and probable million on-the-fly calculations that go into Pidge using his rounded shield like a deadly discus, or the whip-quick way he uses throwing stars, controlling their speed and trajectory with his Voltcom. It’s just that Lance hasn’t had a good, dirty, brawling fistfight since Ariel. And he doesn’t seem likely to get one here, either. These guys are as amateur as it gets. He’s had better fights in village taverns on Arus. 

He leaves the guards to Pidge and gets himself to Manset. 

“Ah, commander,” Manset greets him. Somewhere in the smoke, somebody lets out a scream as Pidge gets to them. “You know, I am almost disappointed. I was hoping to see the show.” 

“That’s good,” Lance says, “that’s good, you sit there and be ironic.” The claws on his knuckles saw through the polyalloy ropes. _These are so-- handy_ , he thinks, and only the greatest willpower keeps him from going to find Pidge in the middle of the fight to tell him so. 

“Behind you,” Manset tells him, and Lance turns without question and drives his fist into the face of the Torisian bartender, who staggers back with a bellow. The knuckleduster on Lance’s right hand shifts into the comforting weight of a grip, heavy to counterweight the long barrel. He brings the pistol up and fires once. The bartender lets out another, higher scream, clutching at his leg. 

“Gotta go,” he says brightly to Manset, who is busily shucking the rest of his ropes. 

“Yes,” Manset says, “I think perhaps a weapon with a loud report makes the smokescreen not so useful?” 

“Do I tell _you_ how to run a casino?” Lance says, and then bolts, because the price of having the last word sometimes turns out to be cutting it very close when it comes to dodging a club aiming for his skull. He darts through the smoke, rolling to dodge another swing. His other pistol materializes and he comes up on one knee to fire both of them in unison. Bang-- two shots glance off the club, bang-- two more and its owner has dropped it, grasping his arm, bang-- a shield ricochets off the back of the man’s skull and he goes down. 

“Don’t be an _idiot!_ ” Pidge yells at him. 

The smokescreen is starting to dissipate and Lance glances around. Most of the crew is down, one way or another. One of them is lying at Manset’s feet, out cold, and there’s a ring of them around Pidge. Honestly, Lance is starting to feel like the slowest guy in the room-- 

A growl sounds behind him, and he realizes three things in rapid succession: that he forgot about Barun staying behind to watch the door, that Relorians like Barun aren't sight-reliant, and that he suddenly knows where Barun _is_. 

The first swipe of the massive claws hits his back like a blunt weight, and he hears a loud tearing noise as the plate of the body armor crumples and splits. The second swipe rakes into him as he turns, slashing him from shoulder to ribs. He feels the pain like it’s through a wall, like something in a dream-- something to do with somebody else. 

_Hurry hurry hurry hurry hurry_ , his brain tells him as time slows down around him. It will, he knows, be a matter of seconds before his body presents the bill for giving him this last shot. 

Lance can see Barun’s arm rearing back up, his claws soaked scarlet, the same color as the long pistols in Lance’s hands as he jams the barrels underneath Barun’s chin. The yellow eyes above him widen, the pupils dilating, and Lance grins as the flames roar higher in his head. 

Pidge is shouting something and it cuts through the inferno enough for him to think-- _no._

Barrels on Barun’s shoulders then, and _fire_ , before he recovers from the shock enough to take another swipe. The huge bouncer lets out a roar, his massive arms suddenly dangling useless at his sides, spouting blood. Non-lethal? Well, maybe. Definitely a better chance of being non-lethal than the alternative was going to be. Lance hopes that qualifies. Every breath is agonizing right now, so maybe Pidge will understand and be able to explain for him, he’s not thinking all that clearly. 

His back is aflame. It all hits him at once, rushing together, and he laughs out loud at the jumble of it-- fire and lions and red, all converging on _him_ , and it’s _funny_ , the irony of that. Is it irony? He can’t quite remember the criteria now, his head is spinning sick and dizzy. ( _Shock is often associated with heavy bleeding from external or internal injury,_ says the voice of some instructor from fifteen years ago, and he can’t remember what he’s supposed to do about that, either, or whose face goes with the voice. _Situational irony is often confused with coincidence._ ) His left hand twitches as the muscles in his arm spasm, and the pistol tumbles out of his grip and vanishes soundlessly before it hits the ground. 

Pidge is suddenly there, wide-eyed and terrified in his swimming vision. “Lance!” he says. “Lance, you’re--” 

_No,_ Lance thinks, and “No,” he says, and takes Pidge by the shoulders, forcing his hands to grip even though they’re shaking. “No, look, it’s okay, don’t worry, I’m fine, I’m fine, don’t be upset.” He has to get Pidge smiling again. “Don’t,” he says, his vision swirling, “don’t worry, bird--” 

Pidge’s hands are bloody, and he dips down to try to see them better through the wavering blur. “Did you get hurt--” he starts to say. 

Darkness swallows him up like smoke.


	10. The walls keep tumbling down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile in the Castle of Lions: Allura and Larmina.

They’re surrounded by doors. Pidge is trying each latch, his hands desperate and shaking, but they’re all locked. “I can’t find the right one,” he says. “It’s important. Princess, please--” 

“You will,” Allura tells him. What he’s looking for, she doesn’t know, but she can feel the utter certainty filling her. Pidge looks up at her. “You will,” she repeats. 

“I have to find it,” he says anxiously, as if he hasn’t even parsed her response. “Lance was knocking from the other side, but something happened to him. I have to find the right door and open it, before it’s too late.” 

“I’ll help you,” Allura promises him. “You try this side, and I’ll try the other side. We’ll find it together.” 

She turns, grasping her long skirts in one hand. Something of Pidge’s anxiety has infected her and she’s ready to run along the long row of doors. (They extend to the edges of her peripheral vision, and show no signs of ending. Where are they? They’re in the Castle somewhere, that much is clear-- but these are the ancient wooden doors that she remembers from her childhood, not the silvery, briskly automatic things they should be.) 

She places her hand on a latch at random, and it swings obediently. “Pidge!” she calls, looking over her shoulder, but he doesn’t seem to hear her. She pushes the door open, and finds herself gazing out over the highest balcony on the Castle. The Star Tower, the Queen’s Observatory, the Widow’s Walk, it’s held many and interconnected names over the years; but it’s always been a distant, lonely place. 

Lance and Sven are leaning on the rail, passing a cigarette back and forth, the way they had when they were boys and they were trying to make their dwindling supply last. Allura wrinkles her nose out of a habit she thought she’d forgotten long ago. Something about this is out of place, and she tries to work out what, watching. A red ember in the twilight, blue smoke drifting. 

“You were careless,” Sven says-- not scolding, not angry at all, just fond and maybe a little exasperated. “That is always your trouble, hothead. You never look before you--” he flicks a fragment of ash off the rail, and raises his eyebrows, “--leap.” 

Lance exhales a plume of smoke. “That’s great, coming from you. You tried to go after that old witch with a _sword_ , like _that_ was going to work. Don’t be sarcastic at me when that was ten times dumber than any stunt I ever pulled.” 

Sven chuckles. “At least I had a better reason than chasing a stray cat. And there is a difference between sarcastic and sardonic.” 

“Shove your semantics up your--” 

“You see?” 

Allura has heard these back-and-forth, bantering exchanges between the other team members before; she’s envied them, sometimes, the ease of them, the connections they’d all had with each other long before meeting her. Other times she’s simply felt exhausted by it, rolling her eyes at competitive conversation. But there’s a current under this, now, that she can’t follow, something that’s out of place and wrong, trying to reach her. 

“I had a reason,” Lance says, sounding-- sad. “I did. It was important.” 

“You did,” Sven agrees. There’s an echo in his tone: the same sorrow and regret, only old and resigned. “So did I. But I’m afraid that is not always enough.” 

Allura realizes suddenly, as if for the first time she’s perceiving a new color that saturates the world in front of her, what the incongruity is-- that Sven and Lance aren’t boys anymore. Sven is bearded and dressed in snow-dusted gray, the way he’d been when she saw him on Crydor. Lance’s red-and-black uniform hadn’t existed yet at the last time he and Sven were together in the Castle of Lions. 

And they never could have stood here together. This balcony had been part of the old Castle; it had been destroyed years ago, before the space explorers had crash-landed on Arus. Too fragile and too unlucky to withstand the attacks and counterattacks of Zarkon’s fighter fleet. 

This, Allura tells herself, cannot be real; it isn’t something that can be taking place anywhere except in her mind. She shuts her eyes tightly. 

“What’re you doing all the way out here, princess?” Lance says, and she opens her eyes again. They’ve both turned to look at her over their shoulders. Sven’s eyes are gleaming an unnatural shade of violet, and the old wound on his neck is glowing, pulsing. Lance’s beloved jacket is a slashed, tattered ruin, wet with spreading blood from the raw red wounds underneath. 

“Allura,” Pidge says behind her. “Please-- tell them they have to get away from there. The rail is starting to break, look.” 

“Sometimes,” Sven says, “there is nothing anyone can do to keep you from falling.” Under his hand, the narrow, graceful curve of the railing is crumbling away. 

Allura swallows. “Please,” she says, and her voice comes out childishly high and timid. “Please, both of you, step back. It isn’t safe.” 

“Oh,” Lance says, almost playful, “nothing’s safe with us around, princess!” He’s holding the cigarette between his fingers, and the glowing tip of it is hypnotic. “Don’t you know that by now? It’s all just a matter of time.” The grin on his face doesn’t reach his eyes. 

“Don’t _joke_ , Lance!” Allura says, and takes a step forward. The balcony creaks and groans ominously. 

“Princess Allura,” Sven says, turning to look at her. Unlike Lance, his smile is gentle, unassuming; like Lance, it doesn’t touch his eyes. “Do you know the cruelest thing about destiny?” 

Allura’s gaze slides down, as if drawn. Around Sven’s fur-lined boots, the balcony is swiftly and visibly cracking. The breaks reveal that the inside of it is rotten; wind and rain must have eaten away at it for years, leaving only a shell too fragile to hold up any kind of weight for long. 

“Sven,” she says, looking up. “Lance. You _must_ step back. The whole balcony could collapse at any moment.” 

Sven tilts his head and smiles at her. “The cruel thing, Princess, isn’t the fate of those who _aren’t_ chosen. It’s the fate of those who _are_ , because it never lasts forever.” 

Allura turns her eyes to Lance-- surely, as low as his regard is for his own safety, he won’t let Sven-- But Lance is looking out into the gloom, unconcerned as the railing creaks under his arms, as blood drips and splatters crimson around his feet. 

“It’s far worse to remember what it was,” Sven says, “to be chosen for only a little while.” 

A drop falls on Allura’s face, icy and wet, and she can’t tell if it was rain or snow when it fell. 

Sven smiles and turns, and the surface of the balcony shatters and crumbles under his feet, and he _falls_ \-- 

As the dust and noise clear in the air, she can see Lance thrown flat against the floor of the balcony, the muscles in his back and arms straining as he holds Sven back from freefall by one hand. 

Allura can’t hold in a cry of shock as she rushes forward; Pidge darts past her, heedless of the danger. He grabs Lance by the waist and tries to pull, bloodying his arms against Lance’s wounds in the process. 

There’s no use in trying to brace herself on the railing; that’s likely to twist away under her hand. Instead she flattens herself against the balcony and reaches out to Sven. With Pidge supporting Lance, with both of them pulling him up, surely they can-- 

Sven looks up, and there’s no fear on his face, only sorrow. “Sooner or later,” he says, his voice filled with an old old sadness, “you must let go.” 

Lance is white-faced with pain, sweat beading at his temples. “Someday,” he grits out. “But not yet.” 

“Don’t let go,” Pidge says, his voice tight with strain. “Even if we can’t pull him up-- Lance, _don’t let go_.” 

The rotting balcony splinters and creaks, and Allura looks back in horror to see long, jagged rifts appear. The entire platform is shuddering as it pulls away from the tower, as they dip ever closer to plunge hundreds of feet to the deceptively soft green surface below. “The Lions,” she says desperately, “we need the Lions--” 

“Princess,” Pidge says, his face spattered with tears and smeared with blood. 

“Allura,” Lance says, gasping in pain, ashen and shaking. 

Sven looks up at her. His eyes are stormcloud-gray again, the eerie violet glow gone, although the wound at his neck is open and angry, spilling blood and haggarium in an ugly, mingled ooze. 

“The Lions will not come,” he says, looking up at her. “Not for us.” 

_You were only chosen for a little while_ , echoes in her head. 

Allura takes a quick, determined breath, then raises her right arm. “Keith!” she says. “Hunk! We need you to launch! We’re at the northwest tower, the tallest one--” 

“Allura,” Pidge says. “Allura, you can’t-- look--” 

She looks at his pale, frightened face, then at the Voltcom encircling her wrist. It’s unresponsive, dead, its familiar lake-blue glow gone. She looks at Pidge, but his Voltcom is dark too, nothing more now than a bracer. 

A red glow in her mind’s eye-- an ember in the twilight. Lance. He’s the only one with a working Voltcom, its lights glowing an angry red. She could almost think she hears it hissing as the cold mist swirls against it. 

“Lance, contact the cadets and tell them to raise the shields around the upper defenses,” she says, command coming to her naturally. Landing against a force field will hurt-- they’ll all have broken bones, at _best_ \-- but it’ll still offer them a chance at survival. “Then call Keith and Hunk, tell them to launch--” 

“They can’t help us.” In fifteen years of knowing him, Allura has never heard Lance sound so defeated. “We’re the only ones here.” 

Sven looks up. “I hoped that at least the rest of you would be spared,” he says sadly. “I’m sorry it wasn’t enough.” 

The balcony groans again, the entire surface shuddering sickeningly downwards. Pidge slides against the railing, and it gives way. “Princess!” he cries, his eyes wide and terrified. “ _Lance--!_ ” 

Lance and Allura both grab for him, but his hand slips out of Lance’s bloodied one, and he’s gone. 

Lance lets out a noise like a wounded animal. Allura’s hands fly to her mouth in horror. _Pidge._

“Can’t,” Lance says brokenly, “I can’t--” 

“Don’t,” Sven says, very gently. 

And then it’s only the two of them. 

* * *

She can’t see Lance’s face; his shaggy hair and outstretched arm hide his expression from her, as he stares down into the fog. 

“We have to get back inside,” Allura says. No hope rises in her, only ashes in her mouth, but she forces herself to keep going. “Maybe they didn’t fall-- maybe they didn’t fall as far as we think. If the shields were--” 

“You’re falling too,” Lance says, without looking at her. “You just don’t know it yet.” 

Fury rises in her then like a tide. How dare he-- how _dare_ he make his cryptic jokes when Sven and Pidge are _gone_ , when they’ve had to count on each other and it _wasn’t enough?_ Pain and anger sharpen into the two edges of a blade within her, and she twists around to to use it. 

Under her, she feels wood and stone give way. 

Above her, as she falls, she can see the red lights around Lance’s dangling arm, glowing like an ember in the twilight. 

* * *

Something catches her, and _pulls._

* * *

“ _Aunt Allura!_ ” Larmina shouts in her ear, and Allura jolts, stares, feels her heart pounding and sweat prickling on her skin. She turns to look at Larmina, who’s staring at her with unmasked worry. Then she turns again, slowly, feeling her pulse begin to slowly return to a normal pace. She can barely see her surroundings in the gloom; there’s stone under her feet and a subterranean chill in the air. The catacombs. 

“Larmina,” she says, hesitantly, and takes a deep breath, then another. 

Larmina is watching her carefully, visibly tense and ready to move. 

Allura pushes her hair back from her face. “Have we--” she begins, and hesitates, and chooses her words carefully. “Has there been any word from Lance or Pidge?” 

Larmina blinks at that. “Not that I’ve heard about.” 

“Was there any sort of signal from Crydor?” 

“. . . no.” Larmina fidgets, glances to the side, but when she looks up again, she seems less ready to pounce, if still anxious. “Did you have another dream?” 

Allura smiles a little lopsidedly. “Am I really that predictable?” 

“At least you weren’t about to walk into the lake this time.” Larmina smiles too. She’s always happier with something concrete to deal with: Allura can already see her compartmentalizing this into _Aunt Allura had another one of her nightmares_ and _she's sleepwalking again_ , smoothing the edges into something clear and simple. It’s one of the lessons Allura has tried again and again to teach her, that life is rarely so unambiguous as she’d like to think. 

She sighs. Or maybe she’s being unfair. 

Every time Voltron sleeps, the universe changes around it. Even if it’s only for a few years, it seems. The path ahead of Larmina now isn’t the same one that was set before Allura-- if their paths were ever the same to begin with. 

She looks into Larmina’s clear blue eyes, and sees-- someone not unlike herself, when she was sixteen. Headstrong, and determined, and not above a little sneaking around. And Allura wonders now, a thread of uncertainty unspooling within her-- is it true, what she’s often thought in exasperation, that she had _never_ been so much trouble? Or are her admonishments the same ones she’d chafed under when she’d heard them from Coran and from her nanny? 

For all her words when she’d handed over the key to Blue Lion to Larmina-- 

Larmina, who is wearing that very blue-accented uniform in the middle of the night, it belatedly occurs to her. “Why are you in the catacombs at this hour?” she asks. 

“Oh! I-- came to ask for guidance!” Larmina says too quickly and too brightly. “From the spirits!” 

“Guidance to the passageway that opens up into the dojo?” 

Larmina’s expression collapses at once into one of annoyance, so quickly it’s almost comical. “If you already know, why’d you ask?” she mutters. “And how _did_ you know? I came this way on purpose.” 

Allura smiles. “Educated guess.” 

Larmina huffs. “Keith . . . told me a long time ago not to use the sparring sims without supervision. But whenever I got somebody there to spot me, they always locked the level down too low. So . . . I started sneaking in when nobody was around. I wasn’t going to get better if nobody let me get past level three.” 

“I see,” Allura says, amused. “I wondered why. We used to see you in there on the monitors at all sorts of odd hours.” 

“The sparring hall is monitored?” 

“Of course.” 

Larmina bites her lower lip and looks up at her. “Does Keith know?” 

“He knows. I think he’s pleased, to be honest.” 

“But--” Larmina looks puzzled. “Why didn’t he ever say anything?” 

Allura smiles. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but Keith is prepared to tolerate a certain amount of . . . let’s call it testing the boundaries, so long as his crew knows to pull together when it counts.” She thinks back to her own checkered, Lion-hotwiring, sword-stealing past-- 

“I guess he must be used to it,” Larmina agrees, “Lance just does whatever he wants,” and Allura wills herself to keep a straight face. 

“Being part of the Voltron Force is a matter of balance,” she says, since Larmina seems to be marginally more receptive to a lesson right now than she usually is. “You have to be devoted to your fellow pilots, trusting and being trusted-- but you also have to be able to think for yourself. There will be times when no one can tell you what to do, or when a situation changes and a plan is suddenly useless.” She leans forward and brushes an errant lock of hair out of Larmina’s face, tucking it back into place. “That’s when you have to act without orders, knowing that the others are still relying on you. That's why Keith lets Lance challenge him -- because he can trust without question that Lance will be there for him.” 

“Trust without question,” Larmina echoes, and lowers her eyes, her hands opening and closing unconsciously, as if she’s looking for the comforting presence of her staff. “Aunt Allura . . .” 

Larmina looking so downcast and lost is like a discordant note, as surreal in its way as dream-disappearances. Even as a small child, she’d always tried to look fierce and indomitable, through thunderstorms and chastising and her silly uncles teasing her. For something to wear through Larmina’s boundless self-confidence like this . . . 

“What is it?” Allura asks, gently, hoping she can draw in rather than push away. 

No such luck. Larmina looks up, her jaw set and determined. “What did you dream about?” she asks. 

The question brings it all rushing back in sickeningly vivid detail. Sven and the utter lack of hope or life in his eyes. Pidge, white-faced and terrified as he slides down into nothingness. Lance torn and bleeding and despairing. 

No gusts of air come down the catacombs, but a memorial candle, set in its niche in the wall opposite her, suddenly gutters nonetheless, flickering unsteadily behind its protective screen. The flame trembles on its wick, fluttering in and out. 

“A nightmare,” she says, turning away from the little flame before it goes out, away from Larmina’s eyes, away from breathing foreboding words into the air to take on a life of their own. “But I’ve forgotten what it was about, exactly. Come on, I’ll walk with you to the passageway. I don’t think I’ll get back to sleep tonight.”


	11. They call it lonely digging

Manset’s voice slowly inches its way through the fog in Pidge’s head until he registers it. “--idge. Sergeant Pidge. Have you fallen asleep?” 

Pidge stares down at the console in his hands, Click!Clack!! blinking its colorful time up! screen, the way it has been for the past . . . some amount of time. He’s not sure. He’s not sure how long Manset has been talking, either. 

“There’s something I want to show you,” Manset says, not unkindly. “Come over here.” 

As Pidge gets up, Manset produces something flat and black, savagely torn and tattered. It takes a brief moment of processing before Pidge recognizes it as the body armor that the Relorian had clawed off of Lance’s back. There is a-- a substantial amount of blood on it. 

He bled so _much_ , that had been the terrifying thing. Balton blood clots quickly. But Lance’s blood had poured, streaking Pidge’s hands and arms, smearing his glasses. He closes one hand, where some unpleasant collusion between his brain and his nerve endings is convincing him he can still feel sticky, darkening smudges drying on his skin. 

Manset turns the armor over, spreading apart the ripped layers with his claws, almost delicately. “Do you see it?” he asks, holding it open. It feels like watching a dissection. “Where the plates connect. There was a defect, here--” He indicates a section of overlapping polymers that have slid cleanly apart in layers. “It would not be detectable when you were putting it on, but the adhesive binder was not applied across the entire backplate. That is why it split.” 

Pidge stares down at the ruined, failed armor. He’d never thought to check its structure. Why would he? 

Manset’s features are hard to read for human eyes, but his voice sounds like he’s calming, reassuring. “I thought it might help you to know that neither of you were at fault.” 

There wasn’t even a _reason._

In a horrible way, Pidge thinks he might have felt _better_ if it had been some correctable error, something that one or the other of them had done wrong and that had led to inevitable consequence in a chain of one-two-three causality. Not just-- random chance. A factory defect, less than one in a million odds, something they couldn’t have ever known about without splitting the armor apart to begin with. Something Pidge couldn't have predicted or accounted for. 

Something he can’t fix. 

* * *

It bothers him. It eats away at his thoughts, corrodes his concentration. He keeps getting up and pattering over to the bed, peering at the flexseal dressing across Lance’s back as if there’s anything he can do about it. 

Keeping busy isn’t working, then, the same way it hasn't been working for him, the same way it only blurred his anxieties before instead of dispelling them. So-- logically-- Pidge takes a deep breath-- the best thing to do is follow the new protocol. _You can tell me._

“Lance,” he says, very quietly. There’s no way Lance can hear him through painkiller-induced sleep, and yet-- saying the words seems to give them a physical reality. Is it fair to say them when Lance can’t hear them? Will it even still work, without Lance awake and aware and able to dispel the fog in his head? 

“I wish you’d wake up,” he says, and leans against the side of the bed. He picks absently at a flake of paint on the frame. “So I could tell you how stupid you are. Lance, _why_ didn’t you activate your Voltcom armor?” 

Pidge presses his chin into the mattress. His lenses refocus themselves automatically, correcting and compensating for light levels and distance; up this close, Lance becomes weirdly, intimately detailed, with every lash and scar and strand of hair brought into high definition, shadows pooling in the dips between muscle and bone. 

“This doesn’t feel real,” Pidge tells him. “This feels like another nightmare. I can’t think, I can’t concentrate-- everything is so . . .” he sighs, “. . . blurry.” Overhead, the chrono flips over to the next hour, although Pidge has lost track of whether it’s day or night, with no signifiers to go by but the permanent neon glow. 

The weird sense of floating unmoored through time brings him back to other endless nights. He remembers shouting and then calling and then whispering himself hoarse, all night long, trying to find the others; remembers nights after battle, after Balto, when nightmares would take him trembling into someone else’s room to burrow into borrowed warmth; remembers sleeping tucked up against the others away from the cold stony floors of Doom’s slave cells, and waking up alone and addled by Terran hours at the Garrison, and lying sleepless in the white light of his blank Voltcom. 

“I need you to come back, Lance,” he says, helplessly, trying again to call out and find someone. “Please wake up.” 

And Lance’s hand abruptly snaps forward and grabs him by the wrist, holding it tight. 

Pidge lets out an undignified yelp and instinctively tries to scramble backwards, but Lance holds on doggedly, his stare cloudy with painkillers and confusion. “Pidge,” he rasps out. His throat works for a moment, trying to swallow. “How’d you get back up?” 

Pidge reaches out to him, trying to stop him from doing something stupid, like trying to sit up. “Back up from where, Lance?” he says. “Here, drink some of this, they said you’d be a little dehydrated when you woke up.” 

“You fell,” Lance says insistently, as Pidge tries to figure out the best way of leading an idiot to water. “I couldn’t catch you and you fell.” He fumbles at Pidge’s hand. “Did you climb back up?” 

_Something_ rushes through Pidge, something heavy and exhaustingly emotional, but unidentifiable: his own Nexus, yet to be decoded. He settles for letting Lance clumsily pat at him, leaning in to let him reassure himself. “Lance,” he says. “You’ve been dreaming, that’s all. I’m right here.” 

"Don't fall," Lance says to him, almost pleading. 

"I won't," Pidge promises him, without knowing what it means. "I won't fall. I’ll be right here." 

He stays there even after Lance’s eyes close again, leaning against the side of the bed, listening to him breathe. 

* * *

When Lance next wakes up, he pushes himself up with one elbow, hisses, lets his breath out in an audible _whoof_ as he collapses back onto the mattress, looks around suspiciously, tries more cautiously to push himself up, and settles his gaze on Pidge, all in the space of about six seconds. 

“Pidge,” he says hoarsely, and clears his throat. He glances around, instantly suspicious and confused. “This . . . what happened to the room? Why are we here?” 

Pidge is already grinning, relief filling his chest like air expanding a balloon. “Good morning to you, too,” he says. “Here, you’re supposed to drink some water now you’re awake. Do you think you can handle that without creating a news incident?” 

“No promises,” Lance rasps out, gravelly, and winces when he reaches for the cup. One hand awkwardly moves to try to touch his own back. “Shit--” His expression changes as recollection clangs into place. “That guy who got my back--” 

“If that’s what you mean when you say ‘got your back’, I think I’ll retroactively pass, thanks.” 

“ _Don’t_ be mean to me,” Lance complains, settling himself on his elbows, wriggling a little until he seems to get himself comfortably positioned. “I _just_ woke up and my back hurts.” 

“You have no one to blame but yourself,” Pidge says primly. He pauses with the cup between both hands, to resist the temptation of touching the bandage. “Are you-- all right? I mean. I’m sure it hurts but is it--” 

Lance gives him a wry grin. “It's the suspense that's killing me. You _gotta_ tell me what happened, bird. What is this, a safehouse?” 

“Not exactly.” Pidge brings him the cup. “It’s-- do you need me to hold the cup for you? You’re going to spill that all over the bed in about a second.” 

“ _Pidge!”_

“All right!” Pidge settles cross-legged on the floor. “First of all, we’re back in the hotel, but we’re on a different floor in an unlisted room.” 

“Unlisted?” 

“Apparently there’s something of a market for them.” 

“Of course there is.” Lance hands him the cup. “A room that doesn't appear on the official register where nobody can look you up? Every sleazy dealer and politician having an affair would kill for that. What about our stuff?” 

“We brought it down in a laundry cart,” Pidge says, popping up to refill it for him. 

“How wacky and cartoonish of you.” 

“Do you want to know what happened,” Pidge asks, bringing the refilled cup back, “or do you want to run commentary? Anyway, we’ve been quietly relocated here as a safety measure. When you were--” 

“God _dammit!”_

“I _told_ you you were going to spill it if you held it like that.” Pidge takes a deep breath. “When you were-- attacked. Manset helped me to haul you out of there. You really have him to thank for getting patched up in time. There’s a clinic behind the strip and they stitched you up there.” He pauses. “You know, they didn’t even ask any questions.” 

“Something tells me that a sketchy doctor on Dradin has probably seen it all. Like, one guy who got in a fight with a Relorian bouncer? Probably not even the weirdest thing they saw _that day_.” 

“Well, he patched you up as best he could-- oh,” Pidge adds airily, when Lance cocks an eyebrow at that, “he said he didn’t know much about human anatomy but he was pretty sure he could figure it out as he went along.” 

He gazes innocently into Lance’s stare. 

“Fuck off,” Lance says after a moment, grinning lopsidedly. 

Pidge can’t help an answering smile. “We’ve had the medicated flexseal bandage on you, and between that and your Voltcom, you’re healing up well ahead of schedule.” 

“My Voltcom?” 

“When I say something I built will augment your physical abilities, I _mean_ it.” Pidge can’t help but feel smug, watching the surprise on Lance’s face give way to admiration. “As long as you’re wearing it and it’s attuned to you, your body will heal itself at an increased rate-- remember when you broke your arm?” He settles his crossed arms on the bed, and rests his chin on them. “The tradeoff for the efficiency is that you’ll scar. More than you would if you gave the topical medication its full time.” 

Lance empties his cup. “Badass,” he says, and smiles. “How long was I out?” 

“Seventy-four hours.” Seventy-four lonely, anxious hours, blurring by in alternating loops of mindless activity and jittery mental overload. 

“Holy shit, no wonder I’m so thirsty.” Pidge stands up to refill his cup for him, but Lance fixes him with a sharp stare. “You slept too, right?” 

“I--” Pidge hesitates, and as soon as he does he’s already lost the battle. “No, no no, _listen_ \--” 

“ _Pidge_ \--” 

“I will,” Pidge rushes to head him off, “I will, I _promise_ , as soon as I get you some water, it’s just--” 

“This better be the best excuse in the history of the _universe_ , bird--” 

“--I wanted to--” Pidge trails off nervously, trying to find the right phrase. “To-- I couldn’t sleep until I knew you were going to be okay.” 

That stops Lance in the middle of puffing up for a tirade. He gets a funny, surprised look on his face, all wide eyes and parted lips. For an instant, despite the three days’ growth of beard and the sharp outline of his features, he looks young and vulnerable-- and that _is_ an odd thought to have, because ‘young and vulnerable’ is something Pidge is used to _being_ , not _seeing_. 

Then Lance smiles ruefully, his brows settling back into place and his eyes narrowing, and the illusion is gone. 

“That was it,” he says. 

* * *

Pidge sleeps in short bursts, not because he isn’t tired-- he is, his eyes are drooping and his movements feel slow and sluggish-- but because he’s set the chrono in his Voltcom to vibrate quietly on his wrist every two hours. It’s not ideal, but it’ll get him back on his feet while still leaving him time to check on Lance. 

The first time the buzzing wakes him up, he looks up to find Lance busily levering himself up by inches, wincing and grumbling quietly to himself. 

“I don’t think you should be sitting up yet,” he says in alarm, sitting up, and Lance _squawks_ , collapsing back on the bed. 

“Go to _sleep_ , Pidge!” he bellows, and Pidge pulls his blanket over his head with a squeak. 

The second time he wakes up, Lance has apparently dragged himself far enough to get some water, somehow or other. He’s back on the bed, propped up in what looks like an uncomfortable position, and Pidge says, “You should have woken me up, I would have gotten you--” 

“ _Pidge!_ ” 

Next time he wakes up his eyes flutter, slowly coming into focus on Lance, who’s . . watching him. They look at each other for a few moments. 

“You really are looking out for me, aren’t you?” Lance says, sounding exasperated and fond. “It’s okay, bird. I’m all right, I promise.” 

“You need,” Pidge yawns, “you need water, and . . . and you need . . . to . . . stop moving so much . . .” His eyes prickle, and he slides them shut, then resolutely forces them open again. Lance is still watching him, not smiling, not frowning, just intent. Something about it seems like it should be embarrassing, but in his fuzzy haze, Pidge finds he doesn’t mind it. 

“I’ll stay right here,” Lance says, conciliatory, “so you get some rest, okay? Let me keep an eye on _you_ for a while.” 

“No you won’t,” Pidge mumbles half-heartedly, “you’ll just . . . as soon as I . . . you’ll . . .” 

The fourth time his alarm buzzes against his wrist, he looks over to see Lance sleeping, still facing him; as he watches, Lance snuffles and shifts his position, and Pidge drifts seamlessly back into his own sleep cycle, curiously reassured by the natural movements instead of the deathlike, drugged stillness he’d been watching for three days. 

His alarm goes off three more times, and he sleeps through all of them. 

* * *

There is -- apparently -- a curious duality to Lance’s nature, Pidge is learning. The man who will sleep till two in the afternoon, given a Keith-free existence, turns out to be the same man who keeps trying to get up when he actually _needs_ bedrest. 

“Pidge,” he says, squirming. “Pidge. _Pidge._ Hey Pidge. Pigeon. Hey. _Hey._ ” 

“No,” Pidge says, without turning around from his displays. 

“I’m just saying, I could be lying down just as well by the pool.” 

“And _I’m_ just saying, you could be lying down just as well on the _floor_.” 

“ _Wow._ ” 

* * *

“I’m _so bored_ ,” Lance whines. 

“Here,” Pidge says in exasperation, digging under yesterday’s laundry for his BitBoard. “Play with this.” 

Lance makes an irked noise but turns his attention to the game, the colorful sliding blocks of Click!Clack!! popping up in the corner of Pidge’s eye. _Good,_ Pidge thinks, _that should keep him quiet._ A moment later he hears the cheerful, beeping fanfare of a cleared level. Then another. Then another. He resumes his inspection of the Nexus texts. 

_Bee-bee-beep!_

There has to be a key that he’s not finding. 

_Bee-bee-beep!_

He’s tried testing it as a scanned text, setting the program to read left-to-right, right-to-left, up-and-down, and every combination he can think of, but it doesn’t seem to be obeying any kind of linguistic rules. 

_Bee-bee-beep!_

He’s tried mathematical decoding, but it just doesn’t add up -- the decryption software only spits out garbled strings and question marks. 

_Bee-bee-beep!_

He’s tried-- 

_Bee-bee-beep!_

Lance gives him a look of studied innocence. “This game is _easy._ ” 

Pidge narrows his eyes. “Give that back.” 

* * *

“How is it that you can’t turn off a projection with a remote switch that clearly says OFF, but you can figure out how to get into the system files and play the Click!Clack!! level sound on repeat _purely to be annoying?”_

“Motivation is key.” 

* * *

“I,” Lance announces brightly, “should probably shower.” 

“Forget it,” Pidge says, keying in a dinner order. 

“I bet I stink.” 

“ _Usually._ ” 

“No, really, come over here and take a whiff, I bet I’m disgusting.” 

Pidge doesn’t dignify that with a response. 

“See, you’re not doing it because you know I’m right,” Lance says smugly. 

Pidge leans his chin on one hand. “Well, you’re definitely disgusting.” 

“I think a shower and shave would probably, like, aid the healing process.” 

“Probably, but I’m starting to enjoy watching you linger in agony.” 

Lance huffs theatrically. “I see how it fucking is.” Then he gives Pidge a sideways look. “I’m going to rub your pillow in my armpit when you’re not looking.” 

“That’s fine,” Pidge says, “it’s not any worse than where I stuck yours while you were unconscious.” 

Lance laughs, and winces, and settles for grinning up at him. 

* * *

“Hey,” Lance says, and Pidge takes a deep breath. Lance holds up a placating hand. “No, I mean it’s a real question this time.” 

“Are you sure? Are you really, _really_ sure?” 

“That guy Barun got me, and you’re right, I didn’t have my Voltcom armor on-- but I had body armor on.” Lance looks over at him. “That should’ve kept the worst of it off of me, but I remember he hit me twice, and the second time he got me. What happened to the armor?” 

Pidge pauses, his hands abruptly going to his lap to twist at the hem of his sweatshirt. “It . . . it was defective. Manset brought it back after he had his security pick everyone up and lock the unit down. It-- the backplate split, the adhesive wasn’t applied properly.” The burn of that settles in his throat, reminding him how powerless he’d been in the face of random chance, how his control over all the variables had been lost with a single unforeseeable happenstance. 

And Lance _laughs._

Pidge jolts at the unexpected sound of it. He looks up, trying to tell himself it was a nervous response, but that harsh bark of sound and Lance's face are anything but anxious. 

“That’s funny,” Lance says, grinning. “Holy shit, that’s _hilarious_ actually. Completely fucking vanquished by a busted glue nozzle somewhere! Incredible.” 

“That’s,” Pidge says. “That’s not. Funny.” 

“Sure it is.” Lance’s voice takes on an aggressive, challenging, _jeering_ note. Pidge has heard it before, although not for a long time-- Lance at his worst, spoiling for a fight with anyone and everyone. It's all the more jarring now, with clumsy kindness and shared vulnerability between them, that softness suddenly jutting out sharp edges Pidge thought he'd moved past. “You just stuffing my carcass into an overhead compartment and cussing me out for not fitting in a carryon.” 

Blood all over his hands and arms, and Lance slumping unconscious against him, the weight almost pushing Pidge down. Sudden fear augmented by helplessness, because Lance has always been untouchable, right behind Keith-- slipping through impossible tangles and somehow guiding the rest of them out safe, with a cocky grin as if it were _easy_ \-- 

“I guess you could have Manset ship my dead ass back COD, but Allura would probably refuse the shipment.” 

Lance, dead. Pidge’s breath knots painfully in his throat. A cold, dizzy wave washes over him, blurring his vision, and he braces his palms on the floor to steady himself. His blood rushes staticky in his ears. 

“--dge? Pidge!” Lance’s voice cuts through the fog, suddenly alarmed. He’s pushing himself up, wincing, favoring his left arm. 

“Stop,” Pidge says shakily. “Stop.” 

“What happened?” Lance insists, staring at him and not exactly lying back down, but staying where he is. “What’s the matter? Are you getting sick? I told you you needed to rest--” 

“Why--” Pidge says, “would you say that? Don’t say that-- don’t say that again. That it’s funny.” 

One corner of Lance’s mouth hitches up. “It is, though.” 

“Don’t say that!” Pidge shouts at him, because he doesn’t know what else to do, in the wake of this overwhelming sick feeling and Lance’s ghastly, ghostly grin. “It’s not _funny!_ It’s not a joke! You almost died, Lance! For nothing! For no reason! Because of a _fluke!_ Don’t laugh about that like it-- like it doesn’t even matter!” 

Lance stares at him for a moment, still wearing that jokey, awful smile, but there's a hard, angry edge on it now, his lips pulled back in something more like a snarl. “It _doesn’t_ matter,” he grinds out, and looks at Pidge, and some unreadable misery wipes away the rictus grin. 

There’s a moment of silence as they stare at each other, tension coiling up so thickly that it’s almost tangible, a thickness in the air that makes it hard to breathe. 

"Just-- forget it," Lance says, lying back down and turning away from him. 

It hurts, sharp and sudden, and maybe more than anything else ever has. 

* * *

Silence fills the hours between them like quicksand, deceptive and dangerous and impassable, as they turn their backs on each other. 

* * *

“I should’ve sold it to that kid when I had the chance,” Lance says into the thick silence. 

Pidge looks up, then follows Lance’s gaze to the torn ruin of his flight jacket-- slashed and shredded and twisted with dried, hardened blood. 

He looks back at Lance, who’s watching him. There is-- something being offered here. Not an apology, not yet, but-- an acknowledgement. A peace offering of sorts, no matter how weak and lopsided. 

Part of him, angry and hurt and still feeling Lance's words digging into him like claws, wants to stay silent-- wants to wrap himself up in green screens and distance, safe and hidden. But some other, conflicting feeling-- something stubborn and clingy and greedy, like a little boy-- wants to reach out and keep what he's found here, holding it close against his chest where no one can take it. 

“Maybe it'd be worth even more like that,” he says, and surprises himself with how steady his own voice is. 

Lance smiles, wry. “A real one of a kind.” He looks at Pidge. “Why’d you hang it up?” 

“. . . I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking about it. I just wanted to be sure I didn’t forget it.” Pidge looks away. “It’s important to you.” 

Lance looks back at the tattered jacket, then huffs in dry amusement. “Well, thanks for the thought.” 

Pidge is debating what to say next, with Lance turning on him still painful, like burned skin after the flame has gone out; but Lance takes a deep breath before he can decide. “I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that. Pidge, when I say that stuff, it’s just-- it’s just _stuff._ Don’t-- don’t get upset about it. Please. It isn't-- _you_ , I just . . . it was a shitty thing to do, and I'm sorry. It wasn't because of _you._ ” 

It’s a mending, or the beginning of one anyway. A patch in the metal; a scar. Pidge looks back down at his keyboard. One of his sleeves has slid down his arm, slowly overtaking his wrist and blurring the keyboard slightly as the fabric brushes against the projection. 

Lance’s voice drops, sad and with an uncharacteristic note of defeat to it. “Y’know, I meant to make you feel _better_ on this trip.” 

Pidge plucks at his cuff, and something about the motion and the unspoken things hanging in the air between them makes him remember-- _You’ve done all this for me, and I didn’t say anything when you needed me to._

In the moment, what he wants to do more than anything is let silence fall between them again, and to shield himself from that ugly, self-destructive despair he’d glimpsed-- to let it stay buried, like magma churning furiously under the surface-- to keep a safe distance, where it can’t reach out and hurt him again. 

He takes a deep breath, and closes his displays. 

Lance looks up at the flicker. “Pidge?” 

Some circuits have to be broken. 

“Don’t say it wouldn’t matter if you died, Lance,” he says steadily. “Even if it was true for everyone else-- it’d matter to me. So don’t ever say that again.” 

Lance stares at him, and he adds belatedly, “. . . please.” 

“I--” Lance’s voice doesn’t crack so much as creak. One corner of his mouth hitches up uncertainly. “I don’t-- I mean--” He looks down. Pidge can’t remember ever seeing him at a loss for words before -- Lance is glib or angry or sarcastic or outright _rude_ , but never uncertain or vulnerable. When he looks back up, it’s almost pleading. 

“Why would you ever say that, Lance?” Pidge asks. He _needs_ an answer, even if the answer is just _because I was angry, scared, in pain_. He needs some kind of cause-and-effect, something more than random chance sending up sprays of blood. 

“Because-- you’re-- I'm--” Lance is smiling, the way he has been since Pidge looked back up at him, but it looks stricken and scared, a shield in a wavering grasp. “I’m not _like_ you, Pidgey. You do something nobody else can, you’re special. I’m just-- just some pilot, you know?” 

The words brand themselves bright red in Pidge’s mind: _You still have something important to do, it’s not the same._ They fall into place, like so much encrypted data suddenly decoded, like suddenly recognizing his own reflection in a mirror. 

“Oh,” he says, at the same moment Lance is stammering out, “Sorry-- sorry, I just-- don’t-- I mean--” 

Pidge stands up and crosses the room back to the bedside, dropping down to his knees beside it, and Lance actually pushes back away from him, scrabbling and still trying desperately to smile. “Pidgey--” 

This is wrong. This is _wrong_ , and it’s sawing on his nerves the way false data does, the way missing answers and inventor's block and nightmares all do. But just maybe, where he's fumbled and failed with all of those . . . maybe he can put _this_ right. 

“Lance,” Pidge says, and Lance looks up at him like a hunted animal, leaning back and away as if Pidge is some towering, intimidating figure. “Lance, that’s not true. You’re important. Not just to me, to _everyone_. Why would you ever think--” He shakes his head. “We’d be lost without you.” 

Lance grins nervously. “C’mon, pigeon-- let’s not get-- okay, okay, you’re right! You’re right so let’s just--” 

“And-- and what I mean to say is--” Pidge reaches forward, pushing his sleeves up before he takes Lance’s hand between his own, holding it steady. “You're not on your own anymore. I’m looking out for you too, now. We’re looking out for each other from now on, no matter what happens. Okay?” He smiles, just a little. "That's an order." 

“Oh,” Lance says, looking stunned-- no longer smiling, no longer pushing himself away, just holding himself very still. 

“And that means it _does_ matter, Lance,” Pidge says. He takes a deep breath, holding tighter to Lance's hand to keep his own steady. “Because from now on, we're in this together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter! Turns out Lance has some baggage of his own to unload. Who would have guessed.  
> I uploaded all the previous chapters in one go, so it may not be totally obvious that there's been something of an eight-month break between those and this one. I hope this one came out all right; I've honestly lost any ability to tell. I have some minor editing to do on the previous chapters, mainly formatting that I messed up, but nothing major.  
> Josie, Beck, Abbie, Dusty, and Twobit are the real MVPs. Thanks, guys.


	12. Guns in my head and they won't go

“Your library sucks,” Lance says accusatorily as soon as Manset walks into the room.

“I believe the usual greeting is ‘hello’,” Manset says blandly, maneuvering his bulk between Pidge’s blinking displays.  “I have brought you a fruit basket.” The silvery cellophane crinkles between two of his hands.

“That’s . . . actually nice of you, even if it’s kinda _what in the whole shit is that, Manset?_ ”

“It’s good for you.  Full of nutrients.”

“ _It’s moving!”_

“Ah?  Well. It’s fresh.”

* * *

 “You are unexpectedly squeamish, Lance,” Manset says jovially as he peels away the rind of an oblong yellow fruit.  He proffers half of it to Lance; Lance, with the sound of scuttling still audible from under the ice bucket, waves it away.  “Come now, this one is most certainly not moving.”

“That one just doesn’t _smell right._ ”

“Bah!  It’s perfectly fine.  It will put-- what’s the phrase you humans have?  It will put filaments on your chest.”

Lance raises an eyebrow.  “I don’t think I want you anywhere near my chest filaments.”

“You need to build yourself back up, my friend!”  Manset takes a bite of the fruit. It squelches. “How else do you expect to recover your brick-like physique?”

“. . . Brick-like?” Lance echoes, not sure if he should be offended.

Manset regards the rind of the fruit for a moment, then sighs and snaps that up too.  When he speaks again, his tone is gentler, almost paternal. “Lance--”

Lance grimaces and leans away.  “We’re not gonna have a moment, are we?”

“Must you be like this?  Commander Keith welcomed the occasional moment.”  Manset sighs. “Lance, you were badly injured-- on my behalf, no less.  Allow a little concern from your friends from time to time.” He waves a hand absently.  “I will assume you are opening your mouth right now to express a genuine sentiment untinged by sarcasm.”

“It was a job.  Shit happens. Besides--”

 _We’re in this together_ echoes in his head, unfurling like spring leaves, the way it does every time he thinks of it -- no matter how hard he tries to bury it.   _Once an idiot, always an idiot_ , he tells himself, and the thought doesn’t change the glow in his chest one bit.

And it must be showing on his face, too, because Manset is giving him a quizzical, head-tilted look.  “And besides?”

The door whirrs open and Pidge bounds into the room with a gaudy red takeout bag firmly in-hand.  “Hey Lance, I brought you some-- oh!”

“Ah, Sergeant Pidge,” Manset says absently, still looking at Lance.  His antennae twitch curiously, lifting independently of each other, and Lance narrows his eyes suspiciously at them.  “You are looking much better too, I’m glad to see. Help yourself to some fruit. The good lieutenant has spurned my gratitude.”

“Fuckin’-A I did.”

“What’s under the--”

“ _Don’t_ pick up the ice bucket,” Lance warns him, and Pidge makes an intrigued little chirpy noise, because of course he does.  “There’s some kind of facehugger or something in there.”

“There is a healthful and nutritious delicacy in there,” Manset counters.  

Pidge gives Lance a doe-eyed look, slowly scooting the upturned bucket toward himself, and Lance heaves a deep, world-weary sigh.  “Fine! Don’t come crying to me, that’s all.”

Manset’s next sentence is offset by the sounds of scuffling and metallic scraping.  Lance pointedly avoids looking. “I believe you were saying something? Possibly some oblique aspersion about the hotel library.”

“If you consider ‘your library is garbage’ to be oblique, sure.  I can get more explicit about it if you want.”

“Bah!” Manset waves a claw dismissively, but he genuinely sounds just a little peeved.  “Hidebound. You have no appreciation of contemporary literature.”

Lance tries to ignore the busy crunching noises coming from Pidge’s general vicinity.  “I can’t appreciate it till you license some of it, buddy. You’ve got enough bodice-rippers in there to destroy Allura’s entire wardrobe.  And by the way? You don’t even have this month’s book. I’ll never finish it in time now.”

“Small loss,” Manset shrugs, and grins conspiratorially.  “It was terrible.”

“All Merla’s books are terrible, but she’s still gonna have a friggin’ field day with me-- you _know_ she doesn’t take ‘I almost died this month’ as an excuse.”

“I don’t believe it,” Pidge says, and they turn to look at him.  He has something that looks like the end of a tentacle stuck to his chin.  Lance stares, mesmerized, as the tip of it twitches. “You really _are_ in a book club together.”

“Ah, has Lance mentioned it?  We are always welcoming of new members, after the initial hazing.”

“You, uh.  You have a-- a-- you have something on your face,” Lance manages.

“Huh?  Oh!” Pidge picks the squirming tendril off between his thumb and forefinger, and grins sheepishly.  “That’s a little embarrassing. Sorry.” Lance manages to close his eyes before he actually _sees_ Pidge swallow the thing, but that doesn’t stop him from hearing the gulp.

When he opens his eyes, Manset is leaning in, with what’s probably an angelic smile for a Mandibian.  He proffers a bunch of thin, yellowy-green fruits; they bounce gelatinously as he moves them, and Lance swallows hard.  “You look so pale. Are you _sure_ I can’t tempt you?”

“Get the _fuck_ out.”

* * *

“You look happier,” Pidge says, looking up as Lance comes out of the bathroom, clean-shaven and with his hair sticking up coarse and damp.

“I _feel_ happier,” Lance replies, and essays a careful stretch.  It feels . . . okay, kind of, but that might be the topical painkiller tricking him.  “Which I _think_ . . . which I’m _pretty sure_ I told you would be exactly the case, but of course you--”

“Not this again--”

“-- _didn’t listen to me_ , I mean, why would you, why would any of you, _why start now_ \--”

Pidge laughs, and shakes his head, and grins up at him.  “I was going to say I’m glad you’re feeling better, but . . .”

“I see how it is.”  He gives Pidge a bright, fake smile.  “ _Say_ .  Why don’t you go brush your teeth?”

“Because I’ve brushed them three times already, you baby.”

Lance huffs and pulls a shirt over his head.  Wearing fresh clothes feels _nice_.  Hell, getting up and moving around is pretty great, and that’s not something he generally has to say about getting out of bed.

“Hey Lance,” Pidge says idly.

“Hmm?”

Pidge grins.  “It was _really_ tasty.”

Lance takes a deep breath, counts to four, lets it out again.  He is not going to rise to this. He is not going to rise to this.  He is not going to--

“It had that-- what’s the word?  Umami.”

“Shut _up!_ ”  He shifts his shoulders a little irritably over the background music of Pidge sniggering, feeling-- exposed.  Too open.

“Does it hurt?” Pidge says, breaking into his thoughts, and he blinks.  When he looks over, Pidge tilts his head. “You were doing-- this,” he explains, and rolls his shoulders exaggeratedly up and down.

“Oh-- no,” Lance says, and then processes it.  “I mean, it’s fine.” The flexseal outline is probably visible under his shirt, a crease outlining his back for anyone to see; or maybe he’s just too conscious of it, the faint tug of the adhesive on his skin and the medicated tingle of the painkiller.

Pidge is looking altogether too conscious of Lance, too, watching him with a concern that’s kind of cute and touching and also kind of a piss-off.  “Are you sure you’re okay to be up? You don’t want to rest?”

“ _Pidge._  I’m _good._  I want to get out of this room before the wallpaper starts crawling.”

Pidge looks at him gravely.  “You have soap on your ear.”

“. . . why the hell didn’t you mention it before?”

“I wanted to see if you’d notice.”

Lance brings his arm up automatically, and then winces -- more because the motion has tugged on the glue than because he can actually feel anything under the bandage, but Pidge hops up from his seat just the same.  “I’ll get it,” he offers.

And Lance _immediately_ steps back for multiple reasons, pride being the first and most unashamedly vocal among them, and something almost like fear lurking at the tail of the pack.  Pidge is too close and Lance is too open, too exposed--

Pidge rolls his eyes.  “Oh, I can sleep with my head practically in your armpit but you can’t let me touch your ear for two seconds?  Get over yourself.”

Up on tiptoes, one quick _flick_ of sensation, and Pidge is walking away and the side of Lance’s face is tingling like it’s been medicated, too.  His hands automatically lift, looking for pockets that aren’t there to hide in, and drop helplessly back at his sides.  “You’re known to be generally sticky,” he offers in weak defense.

“Stick this,” Pidge says, and makes one of those rude gestures that Lance would never have believed little Pidgey could know, if he hadn’t taught it to Pidge himself.

Thoroughly hoisted by his own petard, Lance decides to drop it and hope Pidge will be gracious in victory.  His brain, desperate to settle on anything that isn’t _this, here, now, that,_ retreats back to the safety of--

“Were you the one who taught that to Allura?” he asks abruptly.  “Because Nanny blamed _me._ ”

Pidge grins.

* * *

It’s with a sinking heart that Lance abruptly recognizes the signs.  

They’ve wandered the resort for an entire afternoon, interspersed with bouts of Pidge-fuss.  It’s actually the longest span of time he’s gotten to spend in actual, uninterrupted, fully-comped leisure on Dradin -- and here he is, picking listlessly at the food and getting irritated at the crowding and half-heartedly trying to feign interest in the Many Delightful Activities Available.

He is, without a doubt, sick of the place.

He hasn’t even gotten to enjoy any of it yet.  It doesn’t seem fair, really.

Pidge is trying, bless his little cotton socks, but he seems at a bit of a loss with the pool, the bars, and any activity more strenuous than a walk off-limits.  The amount of care he’s putting into it is . . . characteristic, Lance tells himself, exactly the normal amount of effort Pidge puts into anything, if he does it at all.  But for all that Pidge still seems nervous, trying to fill in the wells in their conversation with chirpy, cheerful chatter that doesn’t match the way his eyes keep darting back to Lance and then away.

Lance had known, or at least he scathingly tells himself he _should_ have known, that the kind of touchy-feely, late-night confessional closeness they’ve had wasn’t going to last.  It _couldn’t_ last, people couldn’t maintain that kind of intensity for long.  (Allura’s the exception, but then again, unlimited emotional sincerity is probably a princess thing, along with animal sidekicks and musical numbers.)  

And-- the reminder clangs in his mind with the finality of an airlock closing-- it wasn’t going to last _anyway_ .  They’d go home.  There’d be a joyous reunion all around, Allura would lecture him _like a hypocrite_ , Keith would nod solemnly _like a hypocrite_ , by then it’d probably be dinnertime and after that Pidge would head off with Hunk and Lance would . . . he’d go off and do his own thing.  Job done, Pidge back to his old self, and that’d be--

\--enough.

He could survive on that for a while, anyway.

He’s done it before, with less.

Besides, at some point he’s going to have to stop trying to fool himself--

“Lance.   _Here._ ”  Pidge is holding out a takeaway cup, the trifoam sparkling gaudy silver-holo in his hand.  There’s the outline of something around his wrist, just visible under the baggy sleeve.

Lance takes the cup.  “What is it?”

“Coffee.”  When Lance takes off the cap and peers into the cup, Pidge gives him a grumpy look.  “Really? You don’t trust me to hand you a cup of coffee?”

“I mean.  No.” Lance raises an eyebrow.  “I saw you eat some kind of screaming mantis-lobster-slug _today_.”

“Will you _please_ get over it?  Anyway, I promise that coffee is as bleak and boring as even you could possibly ask.”

“Well, thanks for not sludging your customary nine sugars into it.”  

 _I like my men like I like my women like I like my coffee_ his shitheel brain reflexively pipes up, _hot, bitter, and out of my price range._

“You’re wearing your Voltcom again, huh?” is what he actually _says_.

Pidge blinks, and then his gaze takes on an appraising air.  “I thought maybe you were just spacey from the pain meds,” he says, contemplative, “but there you go, noticing things.”

Lance swallows a mouthful of coffee, and the sensation of being gently scalded inside follows reassuringly.  For all the glitzy packaging, it tastes like it’s been sitting in an unwashed carafe for hours, slowly turning to tar.  He’s almost touched that, amidst all the creamy, colorful concoctions out there being carefully brewed to lovingly exacting specifications, Pidge managed to remember his usual order.  

“What made you change your mind?” he asks.

Pidge fidgets with his hoodie string.  “Well,” he says, “I figured I couldn’t justifiably get mad at you for not wearing your armor if I wasn’t prepared with mine, and I really want to be able to get mad at you about that.”

“Huh.”

“And besides--”  Pidge takes a hesitant breath, glances up at him and then away.  “I figured-- I was thinking about, if we really are in this together-- then I’m. . . Well, you know, I should wear it.  Because I’m part of the team. You might need something sometime.” His jittery pauses punctuate every fragment, his brows drawn together and his entire body tense.  “You guys, I mean. All of you. _Including_ you _._  Uh.”

“Makes sense,” Lance says, after a moment.

“Listen, Lance--”  Pidge abruptly turns up to him, his eyes wide.  “Are you . . . I mean-- look, we _are_ in this together, I meant that.  Is there something wrong? Are you just tired or-- you’ve barely said anything and you look so-- so _sad._ ”

Well fuck, he hadn’t meant to be _obvious._  “Listen, Pidge-- that’s just, y’know, my face--”

Pidge’s features settle into a determined ( _pout,_ says that _fucking_ peanut gallery running constant commentary in his head) scowl.  “Oh no. Not this time.”

“What not this--”

“You’re not wriggling out of it this time!” Pidge barks up at him.  “This whole time you’ve been wringing me out, and making me own up, and listening to every stupid thing I say-- but as soon as it comes around to _you,_ you’re out of the conversation faster than Red hitting escape velocity!”

“But I didn’t do this for m--” Lance tries to say, and Pidge bristles.

“Well, _I’m_ doing it for you!  Okay? I’m not going to leave you to deal with _your_ problems by yourself, and that means you’re going to talk to me, Lance!  No more changing the subject, no more ominous silences-- we’re going to _help each other_ , but that means you have to tell me why you look so _miserable!”_

“Pidgey,” Lance says, more than a little shocked at the outburst-- it’s not that it’s out of character for him, really.  It’s just that he hasn’t seen Pidge get so fired up and passionate about something for _so long_ .  Lance had always brushed it off as a holdover from having to be meek and docile under Wade’s watchful eye-- but it just hits him again, how much Pidge has tried to mold himself to be what he thinks they all need him to be.  As if he had to prove something, _be_ something to earn their interest.  As if they needed him to be more than just . . . _Pidge._

“I think you might be disappointed,” he says to Pidge’s determined face, “but the truth is-- I was just thinking that I _really_ want to get away from this place.  I mean. Just Dradin, generally.”

Pidge _sags_ , and Lance hastens to add, “But like-- it’s okay if you want to--”

“Thank _god,_ ” Pidge says, and when he turns his face back up to Lance’s, he’s grinning, his nose crinkled, and everything sort of starts tilting its way back towards being okay because Pidge is being just . . . _Pidge,_ and he doesn’t seem to mind if Lance is just being _Lance_ , and, well, that’s as good a fresh start as any.

* * *

“Are you sure you will not reconsider?” Manset says, steepling together one of his sets of claws.  He seems genuinely regretful, as far as Lance can tell. “Especially after your hasty departure from your last visit, I was hoping you would be able to relax and enjoy the resort after taking care of business.”

It might even be true.  Lance doesn’t know much about Manset’s history, but his casino-resort-hotel-amusement-park hybrid really does seem to be his pride and joy.  And if that pride and joy takes the form of more than one golden statue of the owner in various states of undress, well, on second thought he definitely needs to get out of here _yesterday_.  “I don’t think you’ll be saying that after you see what we did to the minibar.”

“Bah,” Manset says, and waves a hand in vague dismissal.  “You have certainly earned as much. After all, you risked your very life to--”

“It’d be cool if you could tell Merla why I won’t be calling in this month.”

“And what have you done for _me_ lately, Lance?”

“Cannot believe that the book club was real this whole time,” Pidge says.

Lance and Manset both turn to him.  “Bird,” Lance says. “When would either of us ever lie to you?”

“The very idea,” Manset proclaims grandly, laying one of the claws that wasn’t doing anything over his chest, “wounds me to the core.”

Pidge takes a deep breath, one long audible inhalation through his nose, and changes the subject.  “There _is_ something we were wondering about, Manset, since you’re feeling so eager to open up your heart to us.”

“All three of them,” Manset agrees.

Lance smiles, bright and friendly.  “Was being kidnapped part of your scam all along, or did that actually go wrong for real?”

There is a pause, broken by the sound of a long, slow creak as Manset leans back in his chair.

“‘Scam?’” he repeats, after a moment.

“Yeah, Manset, _scam._  Remember the part where you told us there was an organized crime syndicate making threats against your resort?”

Manset tilts his head.  “Do you remember the part where _you two_ rescued me from a group of criminals holding me hostage?”

“Oh, bullshit,” Lance says.

“There’s no way that bunch could have gotten through even your standard security with the equipment they had,” Pidge adds.  “You should have been able to take care of them without us. The only way they could get to you is if you let them get to you.”

“Was this-- what, a land grab?  Eliminating some competition?”

Manset holds up two hands and shakes his head.  “Slow down, my young friends. I understand your questions, but you are not in possession of all the information.”  He clicks his mandibles together, a brief _tck_ sound, and then sighs.  “Originally-- yes, I was well aware of their limitations.  They were effectively nothing more than a street gang making a nuisance of themselves in my proverbial backyard-- _however_.”  

Lance exchanges a glance with Pidge.  After another moment, when it becomes obvious Manset is dragging this out and waiting for them to ask, he narrows his eyes, just as Pidge leans back and crosses his arms.  “ _However?_ ” they both say at the same time.

“ _However,_ ” Manset rumbles, standing up and going to the window.  “It is my belief -- based on what I heard while being held there -- that some other party was alerted to the fact that you two would be present, and made it possible for these . . .”  His antennae twitch. “. . . _amateurs_ to capture me, in order to use me as bait.  They were _somehow_ able to bypass my personal security measures -- not an easy feat, by quantity alone.”

Pidge uncrosses his arms and sits back up, looking at Lance.  Lance leans forward. “ _What_ other party, Manset?”

“Ah.”  Manset turns and goes back to his chair, sinking into it.  “This, I have yet to determine.” He wags a ringed finger at them.  “In your youthful exuberance, you left the immediate culprits . . . well, largely in no condition to answer questions.”

“I’m _pretty sure_ we didn’t kill anyone,” Pidge says, thoughtfully.

“Not immediately,” Manset agrees, “but unfortunately, extenuating circumstances led to the local law enforcement becoming involved.  This, I am sorry to say, puts me in a position where I am unable to question my attackers . . . personally.”

“He means somebody heard gunshots and called the cops, Lance.”

“Oh, sure, this is all _my_ fault.  Y’know,” Lance says, “not for nothing, at least a few of those creeps were people _you_ hired.”

“Internal investigations are ongoing,” Manset says smoothly.

“I just bet.”

Pidge looks at Lance, his brow furrowing.  “Who’d even know we were coming? It’s not like we showed up in the Lions.  How would anybody find out there were two--” He pauses, and looks terribly blank for a moment, before shaking himself and continuing, “--that there were two Voltron pilots here?”

“That sounds like a question for Manset, doesn’t it?” Lance says coldly, and Manset actually looks alarmed.

“I give you my word, no one learned it from me,” Manset says.  He tries for joviality. “Come, Lance, even if you are heartless enough to believe I would betray the Voltron Force after our long association, surely you will agree that I would have everything to lose by doing so.”

It’s Lance’s turn to lean back in his chair.  After a moment, Manset seems to relax, and makes that _tck_ sound at him again.  “If anything, it is likely that you two were recognized.”

“You think somebody recognized us on the ground, put together a plan, talked a bunch of bottom-feeders into it, armed them, and tried to kill us in _two days._ ”

“I think it is dangerous to make assumptions,” Manset says after a moment.  “Until I can find out for sure what happened, speculation may well cause us to blind ourselves to other possibilities.”

Lance doesn’t say anything to that, because he doesn’t have an argument for it.  He’s getting that funny feeling again, the same one he’d gotten when Pidge was talking about the Lions -- like they’re brushing up against the corner of something, while the bulk of it looms huge and unrecognized over their heads.

“I give you my word that I will find out what happened,” Manset promises them, and then cocks his head at Lance with a smile.  “And since I know you will not be satisfied by that alone, my friend, understand that I am also going to find out who tried to use _me._ ”

* * *

“Do you think he was lying?” Pidge asks, taking Lance by surprise.  It must be written on his face, because Pidge gives him a little grin.  “You’re the one who always complains that nobody listens to you.”

“None of you ever _do._ ”  Lance huffs theatrically.  “It’s always _oh Lance, you’re just paranoid_ and _wow Lance jealous much_ and _Lance do you really think people do that, just sit there and tell lies_ \--”

“I mean . . . you _are_ paranoid.”

“ _Somebody_ has to be suspicious of all these well-meaning strangers who show up at exactly the right time and place with extremely helpful information.”

“Well, that’s Manset all right.  Do you really think he was behind it?” Pidge asks, looking uncertainly at him.  “I mean-- do you think he wanted us dead?”

“. . . No,” Lance says, moody.  “I don’t. But that means we don’t know who _does._ ”

Pidge looks away, then glances back at him with an uncertain little smile.  “Half the galaxy, anyway.”

“Hah!”

Pidge bumps up against him.  “We don’t have any _proof_ that somebody found out we were coming.”  When Lance looks down, Pidge’s face is already set in the thoughtful lines that mean he’s turning over puzzle pieces in his head.  “Well . . . think about it. Manset contacted you on a secure channel, and anybody who had access to that would have access to Castle communications.”  Lance tenses, and Pidge rolls his eyes. “And they _don’t,_ Lance.  Give me _some_ credit.  I’ve already checked up on that.”

“Oh, so you’re telling me _Vince_ couldn’t find the chink in our collective armor?” Lance says acidly.

Pidge frowns.  “No, he couldn’t.  I don’t think there’s anything to find.”  He glances down and away, then back up again.  “Lance, I _hope_ you’re not going to turn this whole trip into some weird grudge against Vince on my behalf.”

“Get ready for disappointment.”

“We’ll see.”  Pidge bumps into him again.  “Manset has a lot of enemies, too.  Maybe it had nothing to do with us. If you ask me . . .”

“I’m asking, I’m asking.”

“If you ask _me,_ it sounds like an inside job-- somebody who had security clearance into Manset’s private area.”  Pidge grins, and the freckles on his nose disappear as it scrunches up. “I know this is going to offend your ego, but . . . I think we were just a bonus, Lance.  Somebody saw the opportunity, figured we’d be worth a thick chunk of the Arusian treasury, and went for it.”

Lance turns that over, trying to fit it into all the ideas jingling in his head.  Sometimes, _sometimes_ he wishes that he could think in one-two-three order, the way Keith and Pidge do, instead of having his brain bounce like a rubber ball between restless, half-formed ideas.  Just when he thinks he’s grasped one thought, another one goes off, and it’s resisting his attempts to make sense of it all. Everything seems too . . . _easy._  Bad timing, disgruntled employees-- it seems like an awfully fantastical coincidence.  

Or maybe he really _is_ just paranoid, looking for meaning where there isn’t any.

Pidge’s hand, small and neat and warm, wraps around his.  “Lance,” he says. “Don’t worry so much.” Lance looks up, startled, and Pidge lets go of his hand to push his own eyebrows together with two fingers.  “You were doing this. Lance, when Manset gets his answers we’ll find out what he knows, and when we get back to Arus we’ll tell the others. You don’t have to try and figure this all out on your own.”

 _But I should be able to,_ Lance wants to say.  Pidge squeezes his hand and then lets go, and the words _Keith could do it_ linger on the tip of his tongue.

“Y’know,” he says, swallowing that thought back down, “there _is_ one thing I want to do before we go.”

* * *

In the end, he can’t find a jacket that he likes in the resort shops.  There are _plenty_ of them to choose from, cut in all different styles for all different bodies-- but that’s just the problem, they’re all made for the aesthetic, faux motorcycle jackets and smart tailored coats and bomber jackets in trendy colors.  Lance isn’t exactly _opposed_ to pink-and-teal leather, but he’s pretty sure it’d clash heavy with his hair.  

After a while he resigns himself to having to go somewhere else for an outdated mil-spec flight jacket of the kind the Garrison handed out to pilots forty years ago, since _for some reason_ fashion boutiques don’t appear to carry them, and settles for the heaviest hoodie he can find, just to have something on.

“ _Please_ ,” Pidge whines, lying on his side on a bench.  “ _Please tell me you’re done._ ”

“Pipe down, bird,” Lance says briskly, rolling the sleeves up to his elbows.

“We have been here for _one million hours._ ”  Pidge rolls over, the better to throw an arm back over his head and let one leg slide to the floor.  “You have gone into _eight stores._  I am literally wasting away.”

Lance grins.  “And yet look who’s dragging it out _now,_ just to be dramatic.”

“Taste your own medicine and repent.”  Pidge sits up, rumples up his own hair into an even fluffier state, and looks up at Lance.  “I thought you were getting a jacket.”

“Couldn’t find one I liked.”

“In _eight stores?_ ”

“In _eight stores._ ”

Pidge hops up.  “Well, it looks good on you.”  Lance looks at him, questioningly.  “Black, I mean.”

“Glad you approve.”  It doesn’t have the weight or the creak or the smell of leather, but at least it’s something.  Lance has been feeling weirdly underdressed and . . . _exposed_ , for lack of a better word, since he’s been back up on his feet.  Oh well.

Pidge looks at him, and a slow smile lifts the corners of his mouth.  “Mourn your iconic, highly collectible look later, Lance. Manset said he was going to try to get us priority clearance through a jump gate.”

“A _jump gate?_ ” Lance says, and his voice ratchets up a notch in spite of himself.  “I thought those were _illegal!_ Jesus, bird, first I _almost_ die and now you’re trying to finish the job! _”_

“Oh, come on, you don’t believe all those urban legends about molecular rearrangement, do you?  Ninety-three percent of those crashes were proven to be pilot error.” Pidge’s eyes are bright and dancing, and Lance can’t tell if it’s _haha winding Lance up is fun_ excitement or _I’m about to get my hands on some illegal-ass tech_ excitement.  “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“It was in my _jacket!”_

* * *

“I never get to have any fun,” Pidge pouts as he flips switches on the shuttle dash, the priority clearance by way of Manset Knowing A Guy having failed to materialize.  Lance hopes to find The Guy someday and thank him for not showing up, or for being another one of Manset’s practical jokes or whatever.

“Well, look on the bright side, at least we won’t be arriving back on Arus as canned soup.”  Lance leans back into his seat and closes his eyes. He’s . . . tired. It was kind of nice to let Pidge shepherd him along into the copilot’s seat before bustling to handle the launch himself.  Lance has always been used to handling the practicalities of situations by himself, whether it’s piloting or investigating or battling. So it’s weird. But nice. Nice to feel like he can let somebody else do something.  Nice to feel like he doesn’t have to prove otherwise.

“Hey, can I ask a question?” Pidge says.  He glances over, the reflections of the gauges on his glasses obscuring his eyes.  “Why was that jacket such a big deal to you?”

“Comfy.”

“No, for real.”  The ready-light blinks, and Pidge turns his attention back to the displays, edging the shuttle up toward the atmospheric boundary.

Lance regards him for a moment.  “My grandfather gave it to me,” he finally says.  “When I got into the Academy.” Which is true. Not the whole story.  But a piece of it.

“Oh!” Pidge says, and looks genuinely upset.  “I didn’t know--”

“And it was comfy.”  Lance moves to put his arms behind his head, then winces as his back strains, and slides his hands into his pockets instead.  “Had a lot of pockets.”

“I’m sorry,” Pidge offers.  His brows are drawn together.  “I knew it meant a lot to you, but I didn’t know it was-- you know-- important like that.”

“It wasn’t, Pidge.  It was just a thing.  It’s fine.” Pidge gives him a sideways look that says _I don’t believe a word of that_ , and Lance shifts uncomfortably.  “Listen,” he says. “When I get attached to anything it . . . disappears.  So I just-- don’t. I don’t sweat stuff like that.” The silence ticks out a beat too long.  “Stuff breaks, people leave-- I mean, that’s just life, you know? So I decided I couldn’t get bent about it all the time.”

Pidge makes a funny little noise, funny enough to make Lance turn around and look at him suspiciously.  “What?”

“Nothing,” Pidge says quickly, the corners of his mouth twitching as if he’s trying to hide a grin.  “I’ve always said you’re very detached. Clinical, even--” He sputters on the last word, fizzling into a giggle.

Lance narrows his eyes.  “What the hell are you snickering about?”

“You’re the clingiest person I’ve _ever met_ , that’s what.”

“I am not!” Lance barks back automatically, and scowls, wondering how someone so bright could possibly read him so wrong.  “And _you_ should talk!”

Pidge’s eyes are dancing, his grin a challenge.  “Maybe, but I never denied it, because I’m not a contrarian like _some_ people.”

“I am not a--” Lance starts, then abruptly realizes the trap that’s been laid.  He sinks back into sulky silence, folding his arms.

“You _screamed_ if somebody tried to stop you wearing that jacket.”

“That was _one time!_ ”

“Yeah, because nobody wanted to deal with the fallout a second time.”  Pidge pulls his feet up to sit cross-legged on the pilot’s seat. “You know, Lance-- I think, um.  I think it’s probably good for you to . . . I’m not sure if this is exactly the right word, but I think it’s probably good for you to let yourself feel bad.  It’s okay to-- to grieve stuff, and to miss it.”

“It was just an old jacket,” Lance says, a little helplessly.

“Yeah, but it meant something to you.”  Pidge smiles a little. “Listen, you know how you told me it was okay to feel angry?  I’m telling you, it’s okay to feel sad. It’s okay to let stuff _mean_ something to you.”

The tips of Lance’s ears are burning, heat prickling through him.  “Yeah?” he says weakly. After a few moments more, he grins crookedly.  “Y’know, bird, you should be careful what you wish for. I was a real crybaby when I was a little kid.”

Pidge giggles.  “That’s not as hard to believe as you might think.”

“I entrust this fragment of my soul to you and you _insult me._ ”

“It’s not an insult.”  Pidge locks the shuttle into autopilot, and wriggles around in the chair to face him.

“You are accusing me,” Lance says, putting on a show of indignation to hide the flusterment, “of having _feelings,_ a baseless slander.”

But Pidge gives him a strangely solemn look.  “Lance, you care so much-- about all of us. This whole past week has just proven that.”  He looks down at his hands, fidgeting with his sleeves. “And you . . . you don’t just hand that out to anybody.  It feels _special,_ having you believe in us, having you care about us.  It _means_ something.  I mean, it’s . . . it’s not something we just talk about, but.  I know that all of us-- all of us have felt that way. That we have you there with us, that you’re watching out for us.  And that matters.” He lets out an exasperated little noise. “I’m not saying it right, but-- Lance? Lance!”

Lance determinedly pulls his hood as far forward as he can, leaning away when Pidge leans perilously over his armrest and tries to pull at it.  “You take that off!”

“You shut up!” he retorts, muffled, and absolutely certain that his face is the same color as Red’s metallic hide.

“No!  Admit that you have feelings!  You’re having a feeling right now!”  Pidge laughs, bell-like, and pushes back just a little to brace himself on Lance’s armrest; and Lance, drawn against his better judgement by the brightness of it, cautiously pushes the hood back.

“Lance,” Pidge says again, and he’s still smiling, but his eyes are glowing and focused.  Under that gaze, Lance feels like he’s another puzzle that Pidge is working out and fitting together, finding the edges of the pieces.  “You’re so dumb. Why would you ever think that’s something you have to hide?”

“I mean,” Lance says, and stops, and tries to find the words.  “I don’t know . . . like, how can you ask that, bird? After everything?”

“What do you mean?”

“How can you say-- I mean--”  Lance shakes his head in confusion, unable to find the words he wants.  Ghosts flicker in his mind’s eye, the people who’ve left their marks on him, dark as bruises somewhere inside himself.  His grandfather, his sister, the nieces he never met, Sven, Farla, Haran, a long list of names that he remembers but tries not to touch.   _Daniel_ , the thought floats up unbidden, and he wonders why.  

“What you’re saying,” he finally says, because he doesn’t know how else to express it, “it’s-- it’s like telling me to blow my cover, leave myself open.  You can’t ask me to do that.”

Pidge sits back and looks at him.  “There’s stealth, and then there’s hiding.  Lance, I know people leave, I know things change, but . . . you can’t stop that by telling yourself you don’t care about it.”  He reaches forward and holds Lance’s hand between his own.

“Yeah, but--” Lance begins weakly, and then swallows, trying to get his voice back where it should be.  “Everything . . . everything _does_ go, Pidge.  If I think I have my feet under me, something happens to knock me flat again.  It’s . . . easier, if I just . . . stay down there.”

Pidge gives him an awful look, so terribly sad, so _dangerous_ in its sudden dawning comprehension, that he hastens to plaster on a grin and smooth it all over.  He doesn’t need Pidge, of all people, knowing something like this. “Besides, you know, I never have to share my--”

“Lance,” Pidge says, and the brittle joke dies unfinished between Lance’s teeth.  Pidge looks down, vulnerable, and takes a deep breath; and then when he looks up, he’s determined again.  “You’ve always been brave, right? You always protected _us_.  Tell me what it is that’s scaring you, ‘cause now it’s my turn.”

“I,” Lance says, and stops in confusion.  “I don’t-- know, exactly. It’s-- when everything changes-- I kept my footing before.  I did. I had something to come back to. But--” he shakes his head. “I just-- when I think about that now?  When I think about what’s going to happen someday? I don’t . . . see anything. There’s just . . . there’s . . .”  He looks away from Pidge’s eyes.

Time stretches out in front of him like empty space, the lights around him retreating to far-off galaxies of purpose and love and fulfillment-ever-after.  When he was a kid, life after twenty-five had seemed like an impossibility. Now he’s thirty, and life after twenty-five _still_ seems like an impossibility.

It isn’t that he doesn’t want to, that he isn’t willing to try.  But what if he _can’t?_

What happens when that fiery red glow that’s been the only thing lighting his way goes out, and leaves him in the dark?

“Lance?” Pidge says in a hesitant little voice, and he comes back to the present with a jerk, and then with a wince as his half-healed back protests painfully.

“There’s nothing there,” he says, and then drags a hand down his face, rolling his eyes.  “God, that sounds fucking stupid even to _me._  This is the conversation you want to have?”

“Yes.  Because it’s the one you need to have.”  

“Oh, pithy.  You get that from Keith?”

“Lance, you know _we’ll_ still be here.  Right? _I’ll_ still be here.  It’s been a whole, you know-- a thing the last couple of days, establishing that.”  Pidge smiles over at him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

 _But you are,_ Lance thinks.  All of this-- this closeness, this feeling like, yeah, okay, maybe he’s not exactly _loved_ but at least he’s _wanted_ , which is enough, he’ll take what he can get -- that’s all going to disappear soon.  Lance knows a lot about fires and how they burn out, how they sputter and shrink and turn to smoke, and then coals, and then ashes.

The inner edges of Pidge’s brows draw together, knitting a worried little crease between them.  “Lance? What’s--”

“Let’s not go back yet,” Lance says abruptly.  He has no plan, nothing except impulse to guide him, and the words tumble out before he can think about them.  “Let’s go somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“Balto,” Lance says, without thinking; but immediately it makes sense.  Yeah.  Balto.  It’s a reason, or at least it'd pass for a reason in a dim light. Pidge will know Lance is covering something up, but with any luck, he'll think it's an attempt to do something nice for Pidge, and not the selfish grab it really is.  “I’ve never been there.”

“Yes you have, idiot, we were on Balto-- what, last year?  When Maahox was operating his brain farm.”

“Yeah, but that was for _work._  C’mon, Pidge, I wanna see what Balto’s like when it’s not under attack.”

Pidge hums thoughtfully.  “Well . . . it _would_ be nice to see Chip for a few days . . .”  He grins. “And you didn’t get your vacation in the end, so I guess you’re owed one.  Okay. Balto it is.”

Balto it is.  Pidge will be busy with his brother, and that’ll ease Lance into letting go of this closeness before they land back on Arus.  He can get his thoughts together, marshal himself -- a practice run, hah, for when they land and life goes back to normal. It’ll hurt, but he’ll keep the good memories to warm himself against.  The feeling that for a while, somebody needed him close, thought he mattered, looked at all the ugly broken edges and still wanted him around. The feeling that he was somebody’s first choice, even if it was only for a few days, only because of proximity.  The best available choice, given limited options.  
  
That’s something, at least.  And pathetic as he knows it is, it feels like a luxury, like something he’s stolen.  He wants to hang onto it just a little longer before he has to give it back.

He looks over at Pidge, illuminated by the glow of the displays, with a starfield dappling him as he steers surely forward-- and as ghosts and memories go, Lance finds himself hoping that this one will stay with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well! It's been a while, closer to a year than not, but that's life and here it is. I hope if anybody out there is still reading, you enjoyed this ramble with Lance. With any luck I'll get myself together, but like . . . dang, dudes. No promises.  
> I would like to thank edorazzi, ourdustytrails, and mustlovelance (all @ tumblr) in particular for very patiently reading over bits and pieces of this over the last several months!


End file.
